Circle Closed

“Sweetie, be still. You have something on your face.” It was coming. I knew it. The electricity in the air changed. She licked her thumb. She wiped my face. I could smell her saliva mixed with the unmistakable aroma of a recent long Salem Light cigarette and a cup of Folgers coffee brewed in a percolator. I cringed, unable to will away the urge to wriggle against her grip on my arm. My mother had leveled me once again. What is this unexplainable thing that mothers do to young children with remnants of Jello pudding crusted in the corners of their mouths? Was my spotless mouth that detrimental to our reputation? Why the spit and shine? I wonder, at times, do the sons of mothers obsessed with clean mouths also feel this way? And, so it began, my six-year-old mental list of things about my mother I could not stand. By the time I entered my teens, the list had triple compounded. Why, oh why, did she harp on and on about the same things? Would the world really end if I didn’t make my bed? Night air cannot be the serial killer she made it out to be. Is it not abuse to be subjected to the story of the bicycle spoke piercing her ankle as the child version of her rode over the train tracks with the train whistle blowing? And, why the obsession with lemon juice and honey for sore throats? I did not believe anything she said. I was so much smarter, you see. Why, I understood the world. She did not. That was crystal clear to me.

High school me wanted a lot out of this world. I wanted to talk differently than my mother. I wanted to look differently than my mother. I would be more sophisticated. I would live in a bustling city and have an important job. People would seek me out, far and wide, because my opinion would be integral to so many. The last thing I needed was to be subjected to my mother’s instructions on housekeeping or sewing or canning or cleaning baseboards with toothbrushes. Her ideas were as antiquated as her mannerisms and her attempts to teach me anything. To make matters worse, I was her only child, often left to my own devices and fruitful imagination. I learned to build walls against my mother. I thought I was slick, too. She won’t understand my patronization, after all – I thought. I became a world class eye roller and sighdie expert. “I’d love to help you make homemade bread, but I doubt Mrs. Wharton would approve. I’m sure she’d agree this extra credit Beowulf paper I’m writing would benefit my future best.” Eye roll inserted here. Realizations are hard. My stomach is knotting up as I confess these things, ever hopeful that the reality was not as bad as the memory. I pray that my mother never knew the depth of my disdain. I was not alone. Even now, a poll of my closest girlfriends and female cousins shows me we were all hell bent on getting as far away from our mother’s ridiculous ideologies as we could. It wasn’t only me.

My hard outer shell started to crack, but not until the birth of my 3rd child. Mom and I had been estranged for a bit. There were familial issues and a divorce and a new relationship on her part. I was bitter. She was hurt. I moved out of state. Upon my return, as I went into labor for the last time with a planned home birth in front of me and the realization that there was nothing preventing me from calling my mom, no hospital circus of distractions, limited room space, or multi-state gap, I understood. I didn’t just need my mother. I wanted her with a vengeance. And, she was there. Also, enter my daughter. Over the next 16 years, I began to understand how we moms can fixate on our girls. I just wanted more. I wanted my daughter to have all of my missed opportunities at her feet. I wanted her to realize her worth. I wanted her dreams to come true more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. I thought I could show her things that she could not learn from anyone else, things that would absolutely catapult her to full potential. Yet, my daughter did not always see it that way. See, she thought she was more sophisticated. She was smarter. She understood the world better than I. She eye rolled me and sigh-died me into oblivion. And, we could end this story right here, but we would be remiss, because the circle has not yet closed.

This is not about my daughter dying too early, because, often in my mind, she’s just a pediatrician with Doctors Without Borders or an endangered animal conservationist, off somewhere doing all of those things I willed her to do by cleaning the Jello off of her mouth when she was six years old. That is how one’s mind grieves. Nope, this is about my cruel and unusual treatment of my own mother and how I woke up one day realizing I am not a monster. My mother treated her mother similarly, just as my daughter did the same. I am the lucky one. I was able to pay my mother back with the riches of being an only daughter who reveled in taking care of the woman who brought me into the world as she made her final exit. Thank you, Mom. Also, I made my bed today, my baseboards are decently clean, and my homemade bread is sublime. I will make you proud, yet. Circle closed.

By Dina Moon