To my mum...

Mothers Day

The words came so easily – not because they were fake, lies, or cliché. I mean each and every word of them. Its just…it never quite feels like enough.

Dear Mum,

Thank you for your continued love and support. You are an inspiration. I can only hope to be half the mother you have been to me.

Lots of love, Paula

I think I say the same, or words to that every effect every single year. Again…meaning every word. The whole point of this blog was that if I were to drop dead tomorrow, my daughter could know me, read stories of herself and have a truth of motherhood that only a mother can share. In the midst of my post partum depression, I became panicked that I was going to lose myself and leave her motherless…and so the true confessions began. No baby book, I’m afraid. Already, I cannot remember when your first tooth came through – it’s a haze.

So, I think of my mum. Incredible. Amazing. Loving. I could go on for days but somehow it seems empty because we have gone beyond that. I can say a million words by looking away from you and leaving a question hanging in the air. You can somehow read my hurt over the phone. You are my mum. You are irreplaceable. In fact, you are the one person on this earth that cannot be replaced. So here is something that I need to say…that i'd like you to know.

I’m sorry.

I am wholeheartedly sorry that I once made you cry. That my own words could cause you such grief. That before I finished saying them I saw the pain etched on your face. That he was in the room. That I had the audacity to ever say to you,

“What you think doesn’t count.”

It’s hard to remember the context. It wasn’t said out of malice but the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. You left the room and went upstairs without saying a word. I followed. I could feel the pain I had caused through your bedroom door. In the midst of all you were going through and all the pain you were shielding us from, I let you down. All of that...and I should throw that at you?

I’m sorry.

I eventually walked in and you looked at me with swollen eyes and asked me straight,

“Why would you say such a thing?”

I always remember thinking that you didn’t say ‘How could you?’ but ‘why would you?’ I just blabbed that I didn’t mean it, it came out wrong, and it wasn’t what I wanted to say.

I’m sorry.

I can see you now, holding a crumpled piece of toilet paper in your left hand, tightly fisted with the white tissue peeping through your knuckles. Some of it is caught in your diamond ring. You tell me it’s ok. You tell me you forgive me. We hear him coming up the stairs and we both know you just want me to leave the room so you can curl up and sleep this away. I can respect that.

I leave and dissolve on my own bed. I am wailing. I have never wailed before. Knowing already what you think I don’t. I hate myself in this moment more than ever. I can see myself lying on the bed, tears streaming and I don’t want them to stop. I want to cry myself away for what I just did to you. He enters then. I thought I would stop crying and just lie still and silent but I don’t. I hug him and fully fall into being a child again. “I really upset her”. I say over and over and over and over. And there in that moment, he comes the closest that I have ever heard him get to an admittance of wrongdoing.

“It’s not you she’s upset with. It’s me.”

I wanted more of this man. More of this father. More of hearing this pain from him. I wanted so badly for him to be who we wanted him to be. I know you wanted that way more than me...had wished for that on more nights that I could count.

And then he was gone. Still hugging me, but I knew he was going to break away first. He told me to ‘get some sleep, it would be better in the morning’ and was gone. Back in bed with you. It was done.

I don’t remember anymore than that. Not the next morning. Not if it was ever brought up again. That year, for a million reasons, is forgotten. I do know that I have never told you just how sorry I am and how I only need to think of that moment and I literally wilt. That you deserve to know that every single word you say is important. Every thought you share is taken in and every bit of advice you give is treasured. That every day I will quote you, or hear you in something I say to Olive. I have your lyricism in my voice. I have your bend in my toes. So does Olive.

They don’t leave enough room in cards for that sort of a Happy Mother’s Day downer…but should I drop dead in the night or you leave me tomorrow, I hope you see this first and know forever that you are my everything. That every thing you do counts and is counted and remembered forever.

I love you.