Being a mom is hard every single day. Sometimes, it’s hard work, physically. Sometimes, it’s emotionally trying. Sometimes, it’s both. There is teaching and discipline and worry all woven together with house work, errands, chauffeuring and chaos.
But there are other moments when being a mom goes beyond being hard, those times when just being human is unbearable. Hard is when you get a phone call and your kids won’t stop following you around, jabbering on in the background. Unbearable is the phone call that changes your life forever.
The money is all gone. The adoption fell through. Your parents are getting divorced. Your best friend was just killed in a car crash. The storm hit your home town. The diagnosis is Cancer. Your beloved soldier won’t be coming home. The baby is dead. There were no survivors.
There are phone calls that knock us to our knees, lay us out flat on the floor, suck the last drop of air from our lungs, and yet we find ourselves there, in our motherhood, with the phone still dangling from our lifeless hands, filling yet another sippy cup, looking over homework, answering endless questions.
There are those moments in life when we know the tears should come, the tears will come, but we are paralyzed by our motherhood. We are stricken numb, yet somehow still moving, because we have to, because it’s all we know, because we have no choice.
And yet, we are human. The very life has been drained out of our chests; if we breathe too deeply, we know that we shall surely feel the gaping hole collapse. We are gasping for air, even as we scream at our children, adding the tears of our guilt to the pool of sorrow collecting in our hearts - the ocean we know shall surely spill over the minute they are in their beds and we are silently praying, “please don’t let them wake up!” It is then, and only then, when we are truly allowed to fall apart, to have one second, and then a rush of seconds, of minutes, of long, sleepless hours, to curl into a ball and just begin to process the impact of the blow. If only they don’t wake up, you can have the rest of the night to be a person, a human being, not just a mom.
For a mom, the phrase “and life goes on around you” takes on a whole new meaning. You can’t break down. You can’t retreat. You can’t succumb to the tidal wave that threatens to pull you under and bash your head against the rocks, because even then, in the darkest moment of your life, you are aware of the impact it will have on your children.
Your thoughts are racing with protecting them, from sadness, from fear, from the unknown and yet you can scarcely hold yourself upright. There is so much you’ll have to explain, and yet so much you can’t explain. So much you want to say, so much you must question whether or not to say. You are so very aware of the careful wording of the Mommy language, and yet you are screaming at God from the depths of your being. You are angry, you are scared, and you are so very very sad.
Being a mom is hard every single day. But once in a while, it’s unbearable. It’s cruel and heartless and a knife twisting in your back. And yet life goes on around you. And because today may be that day for you, I just want to say what nobody else may say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that in the moment of your deepest pain, you don’t get to hide away with your hurt. Don’t worry if you yell. They’ll forgive you. They will. They will.
Do the best you can. After all, even though you’re a mom, you’re still only human. And sometimes, being human just hurts.
I had that kind of day recently, maybe not as bad as yours, but still, I know. And I’m sorry. So very sorry.
No comments:
Post a Comment