We went outside today.
It hadn’t been so beautiful in so long.
With messy ponytails and pajama pants, we traipsed around the acres I myself grew up exploring.
Well, they traipsed. I sat and watched.
I look at them, these beautiful things, so solid in our universe, and the days before their existence is blurry.
They step on bugs and pluck dandelions from the dry grass, so confident that they belong just where they are, not yet troubled by anything of consequence… completely unmarred by life.
As the sun shines down on them, their bodies cast elongated shadows on the ground and I see women in them.
My little girls, adults.
I wonder how they’ll be… if they’ll still be just like me in the most intricate and delicate of ways.
I hope they are.
Strong, beautiful, intelligent, hopeful, contemplative.
I hope they aren’t.
Will they be emotionally damaged? I’m sure they will. Who isn’t?
What woman, especially, isn’t?
But like me, no.
Not emotionally decapitated – cut off from that initial, vital lifeline to all that is feeling – their mother.
You need that. You need some semblance of that, I think.
Or maybe it was just I that needed that.
My grandmother raised me as her own.
She loved me, but she loved me like the bastard child of her disappointing daughter.
All that can be expected of a the constant reminder that you failed as a mother, and the product of your failure failed as well, I guess…
My girls are wrapped in my emotions, connected to me and all that I feel.
Hiding my true self from their inquisitiveness is impossible, and I don’t try.
They feel, without issue, unlike me.
I encourage their feeling. Their rage, their sadness, their happiness – only disparaging despairing.
Things will damage them, I cannot prevent that, and I wouldn’t if I could -
with pain comes growth.
I used to think that part of being a parent was shielding children from harm.
That opinion has changed – my responsibility to them lies in soothing bloody knees, not in forbidding running.
They know that they are loved, as wholly and as completely as I am able.
Will they always know?
If I do my job right, yes.
Always.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Beautiful.
And you’re doing a great job. Look at them!! That picture is awesome. (Actually, both of them. There was a different picture in my feed reader!)
Sybil Law´s last blog post..20. Really?!
March 8, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Yeah, I accidentally chose one from today instead of yesterday which was when I was outside watching them and writing this post. :)
Why does each generation need to make its own mistakes? And can’t they be at least a LITTLE different from our own? Someone needs to invent a device to pass knowledge through osmosis. Or something. Because the heartbreak of my own youth is nothing compared to the heartbreak I feel when my own children suffer…
tracey´s last blog post..Where’s the rainbow after this storm?
Love it.
Maria´s last blog post..weekly winners – mar 1-7
So absolutely lovely. Achingly so.
JCK´s last blog post..I’ve picked myself up, dusted off, and am returning to the land of MOVING FORWARD
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
Renee aka Mekhismom´s last blog post..Great News!
Your girls are beautiful. This was a great post.
Jennifer´s last blog post..Nothing a trip to Gatlinburg couldn’t fix.
That was lovely, Maria. And thank you for verbalizing what I believe but haven’t really pondered for a long time: that part of living is falling down and scraping your knee, but from that comes growth.
I think that the really positive influences in our lives (and that includes you!) are those people who manage to spin even the worst experiences into a learning opportunity.
Sadia´s last blog post..First blood
Such a mommy.
Excuse me, I gotta read your newest post too.
Beautiful! The mother daughter relationship is such a complicated one, but it sounds like you are doing a fantastic job.
What a beautiful post! And beautiful girls.
Rachael´s last blog post..Favorite Things Swap!
Gorgeous, dude. And love the frog galoshes.
Captain Steve´s last blog post..Damn Circus Midgets
They know now and they will always know. You rock:)
ourcrookedtree´s last blog post..Jesus, Sex, The Easter Bunny and Other Bedtime Stories