Submitted by: Teeninchee | View Member Profile | View Other Posts
Created: 12/4/2003
Editor's Note: We allow our members to post articles expressing their beliefs and opinions.The views expressed in articles on this website may, or may not be, shared by us. -- The management.
Mama’s Healing
I wanted to snuggle on her lap, to feel the warmth of her and listen to the rhythm of her heart, but I couldn’t. I wanted to stroke the silkiness of her hair without the excuse of brushing it. I couldn’t do that either. I could buy her anything, take her anywhere or do anything for her. We were close—kind of, my Mama and me. I loved her and knew she loved me. Still, something separated me from her; I didn’t know what. Maybe I was too big and too old to sit on her lap, but I needed to touch her. I just couldn’t do it and I felt so lonely—for something.
At times, when I looked at her fluffy, white curls and the gentle face they framed, I wondered if she knew or if she, too, ever felt lonely. She hadn’t had a Mama since she was three, but I wondered if she ever wished she could snuggle on her Mama’s lap and feel comforted. Maybe she didn’t remember what it felt like. After 50 years I didn’t remember either, but I sure wanted to. There are, however, some things a child just doesn’t ask.
One day, as I drove home from work, I listened to a program about the importance of touch in showing children love. The speaker expressed the disconnected feelings known by children who do not experience loving touches. Something is missing that they generally cannot define. Babies, in one study, died because this touch was missing.
Tears blinded my eyes for a moment as my heart acknowledged a truth I’d avoided about my childhood—nobody hugged me. I angrily brushed the tears away because even without hugs, I knew my Mama loved me. She really did. Mama just loved differently. She took care of me.
I remember how the soft light behind her accented the black shimmer of her hair as she bent over her sewing machine, creating a new dress I needed. It wasn’t just a dress. Her love carefully wove blue satin ribbon through the unnecessary white eyelet trimming she’d added. She also designed matching bloomers for play-dresses so my sister and I could climb trees, climb knotted rope ladders our father made, or jump from the hayloft without embarrassment.
Mama listened to piano lessons and years of practice without complaint while I mastered technique and acquired skill. She patiently taught my sweaty little hands to darn socks on an egg. She never shooed me out of her way in the kitchen as she baked or screamed in exasperation when my over-eager hands spilled the egg whites being beaten into stiff peaks for meringue or her special cornbread.
She didn’t punish when the glass being washed “just broke” in my hand—it happened to her as well. She never commanded, “Hold your head still”, through clenched teeth as she French-braided my hair.
She loved me—there was no doubt.
As I listened to the program, I wondered if Mama didn’t hug any of her children because no one hugged her. (I couldn’t recall any of my siblings being hugged either.) Over the years I’d learned that my Mama practiced and taught what she knew. If she didn’t hug children, I concluded that no one had taught her. It was such a sad possibility that I couldn’t bear to think it.
I recalled stories of the mean aunt who’d grudgingly accepted the responsibility of raising 3 girls (two toddlers and a pre-adolescent) after her sister-in-law died. She was so much like the wicked stepmother in fairy tales that my Mama and her sisters finally ran away to escape her meanness. No, she couldn’t have hugged them, and she hadn’t been the one who taught my Mama to care for children patiently either.
Tears began again. This time I cried. I cried for my Mama who’d lost her Mama so young and for all the love she’d missed. Grandma was a midwife who is still remembered for her sweetness, kindness, patience, and gentleness. Mama’s brothers, being older, had known their Mama’s hugs and kisses and had become “huggy-kissy” adults. So, I knew Grandma would have hugged my Mama and Mama would have hugged me. And, I cried because I thought Grandma would have cried too if she’d known her babies weren’t loved the way she loved them.
I turned the radio off, drying my eyes as I parked in my driveway. Mama had just returned from three intense weeks of counseling. After years of trying to understand and resolve the “issues” in her life, she’d finally decided she needed outside intervention. It had been a hard trip for her. Now she had things she wanted to tell, and I didn’t want her worrying about my tears. At the moment, I wasn’t sure I wanted details, but I would listen.
She met me at the door and gathered me into her arms.
“Hi, Darling,” she said softly, in a voice that was like music.
I was stunned speechless. I stood there floating in the joy of it for a moment and then chuckled.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“I was just thinking that nobody hugged me when I was little, and here you are with a hug.”
Laughter filled the room as she said, “Honey, I didn’t know children needed to be hugged! I thought they had to be clean, clothed, fed, and raised in a clean house, and that’s what I did. I didn’t know they needed to be held and read to and “things”. Growing serious she concluded, “I know now, though, and I’m sorry.”
She put her arm around my waist and drew me close again. It felt wonderful, but I couldn’t help wondering how she knew—now. I didn’t ask and she didn’t share.
That night, however, as she rested beside me on my big waterbed she said, “I want to tell you about my trip.”
She told me about how difficult it had been making the decision to go away for counseling and then sharing her life with strangers. She was, after all, a professional woman who should have had the answers, she felt. It was unnerving to realize that not only did she not have answers, she didn’t know the questions she needed to ask. I’d sensed her apprehension as I’d prepared to leave her, which made leaving her hard for me. I’d felt like a parent leaving my child at a counseling center. I worried for her, wondering if they’d understand and help or make her feel worse.
Listening now, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to know—I was afraid she’d cry. (I’ve always hated for her to have a reason for tears.) Tensing, I closed my eyes and waited.
After telling about their initial meeting and first evening’s activities she said, “I cried so much my bed was soaked, and then I cried some more. But I felt better.”
I relaxed. Maybe it wasn’t going to be a tearjerker for me. I could hear the story.
“One day I wrote a letter to my Mama. Let me get it,” she said. “I’ll read it to you.”
She flipped through the pages of notes from her sessions and removed the letter.
“Dear Mama,” she began.
Suddenly I “saw” ‘Mama’. Transfixed I watched my Mama climb up on her mother’s lap and lay her head against her breast. I listened to the voice of a very young child telling her Mama how much she was missed and needed. Through me, her Mama listened as she told her of the things she’d suffered in those tender childhood years—the pain, the successes and failures—and about that mean aunt.
I didn’t move. I hardly dared to breathe, and I swallowed the tears that threatened to interrupt the process I was allowed to share. My Mama had been lonely and longing to talk to her mother for seventy-one years. I knew with certainty that she’d wanted to climb up on her Mama’s lap and feel comforted.
As she finished reading, she became the Mama again. Laying her letter aside she turned and gently stroked my back, sharing the love she hadn’t known was necessary for so long. She shared how she’d found both the questions and answers she’d needed in the process she’d gone through. From the comfort of her Mama’s lap my Mama found what she needed to be whole. At the same time, she’d learned how to help her child.
We talked for a long time after we’d turned off the light. Slowly we drifted off to sleep and the something I had been so lonely for—appeared. A special love from Grandma, to Mama, to me, filled the empty place.
Mama and I spent years going through the motions of celebrating Mother’s Day—sharing cards, flowers, tributes, and gifts—without always feeling the depths of the words we shared. This year would be different. As we shared the day, we would finally be able to fully share and enjoy the blessing of being mother and daughter.
