The photo you see is one of my mother and me in November of 1958. This was the first photo taken of us as she had just brought me home from the hospital after I was born.
I love looking at this photo, I am held so tenderly, so lovingly and looked upon with such joy. All of my other childhood photos are those of a display, a pose for presentation for relatives to see. Stiff, unnatural and in some a little absence of emotion I think. It's hard for me to miss the feeling, the maternal love and pride at work here.
Rarely do we think of our own mothers this way, at least for me it's rare. I tend to focus on her more matured persona. She was about twenty then and living far, far from home and family. She was a new mother, unsure of so many things and trying to figure them out by herself. I've only really known the version of my mother that she let me see. The strong willed, private, determined, resolute guide. I grew up with her expectations clearly defined.
I never saw this woman, the one in the photo. This wisp of a beauty with glossy black hair pulled back. This delicate creature cradling a child she only just came to know as her own. What a lovely feeling for me to see a soft side of this intensely private woman. So private that she endured three sorrowful miscarriages following my birth, events I was never to know but for an old woman's slip of the tongue in later years.
I see her vulnerable side, I see her hesitant wonder, I see that she really didn't know everything....at least not at this point. Perhaps this photo captures the moment she looked at me and decided that over her dead body would any harm come to me, Perhaps this is when she filled with hope for what I might become...if she was to be a good mother.
Perhaps this is the moment she realized she loved someone more than herself, loved me so much that she would never fail me, let harm touch me or hurt break me. Perhaps this is when she stopped being that wisp of a girl with glossy black hair....and became my strong and fearless mother.
The mother I have become despite repeated recitations that I would never be like her. No matter how I deny it...I used her blueprint, I followed her to my own path to motherhood. I held my children and made the vows she made to me. I looked at them and promised them the moon and stars, I fell in love with them and for as many times as they have broken my heart...I hand it right back to them again because that's what mother's do. That's what my mother did.
So on this Mother's Day I will quietly thank my mother for looking at me that way, for falling in love with a tiny child that she knew nothing of except that I was part of her. For loving me no matter what simply because I was hers....and always would be.
Always would be....
I love looking at this photo, I am held so tenderly, so lovingly and looked upon with such joy. All of my other childhood photos are those of a display, a pose for presentation for relatives to see. Stiff, unnatural and in some a little absence of emotion I think. It's hard for me to miss the feeling, the maternal love and pride at work here.
Rarely do we think of our own mothers this way, at least for me it's rare. I tend to focus on her more matured persona. She was about twenty then and living far, far from home and family. She was a new mother, unsure of so many things and trying to figure them out by herself. I've only really known the version of my mother that she let me see. The strong willed, private, determined, resolute guide. I grew up with her expectations clearly defined.
I never saw this woman, the one in the photo. This wisp of a beauty with glossy black hair pulled back. This delicate creature cradling a child she only just came to know as her own. What a lovely feeling for me to see a soft side of this intensely private woman. So private that she endured three sorrowful miscarriages following my birth, events I was never to know but for an old woman's slip of the tongue in later years.
I see her vulnerable side, I see her hesitant wonder, I see that she really didn't know everything....at least not at this point. Perhaps this photo captures the moment she looked at me and decided that over her dead body would any harm come to me, Perhaps this is when she filled with hope for what I might become...if she was to be a good mother.
Perhaps this is the moment she realized she loved someone more than herself, loved me so much that she would never fail me, let harm touch me or hurt break me. Perhaps this is when she stopped being that wisp of a girl with glossy black hair....and became my strong and fearless mother.
The mother I have become despite repeated recitations that I would never be like her. No matter how I deny it...I used her blueprint, I followed her to my own path to motherhood. I held my children and made the vows she made to me. I looked at them and promised them the moon and stars, I fell in love with them and for as many times as they have broken my heart...I hand it right back to them again because that's what mother's do. That's what my mother did.
So on this Mother's Day I will quietly thank my mother for looking at me that way, for falling in love with a tiny child that she knew nothing of except that I was part of her. For loving me no matter what simply because I was hers....and always would be.
Always would be....
Indeed.
Happy Mother's Day
1 comment:
That was truly beautiful. I miss my Mom so much
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