The dance between adult parent and child is well practiced. Step forward, step back. On holidays it’s accentuated, heightened somehow, a series of more vibrant staccatos and denouements. I used to blame it on the gravy, but it’s been years since we’ve had traditional grub on any given Holiday, and Mother’s Day never seems to involve scraping tasty bits from a saucepan. I arrived at her apartment wearing business casual, carefully chosen to impress not only my mother but the women in her building who value such things. A skirt and dressy tank. Admittedly I went with flip flops, but it’s only because my dressy shoes just did not match. I had to talk myself through the moment. You’re fine the way you are. She won’t care about what you’re wearing. So instead I obsessed about my hair.
She had no fewer than six tasks listed for me to complete before we left for dinner. Carefully scripted on the back of an unopened bill. Cut cat’s nails. Call Comcast and restore sound to the widescreen. Cinderella, I felt, and huffed and puffed my way through my chores in anything other than glass slippers. I went horizontal with pliers to change the filter in the ice maker. I grimaced as she asked me to transfer pics from her digital camera to the computer, pictures yet to be taken despite an open morning, the PC transfer cord yet to be found. Check. Check. Check. I was so angry that we couldn’t just connect, just hang out like mothers and daughters are supposed to, as adults exchanging ideas and compliments over high tea, bonnets tilted only slightly, smiles forced but ever present. There was more. Old TV and VCR to be taken to the garbage bay, night stand she couldn’t bear in her space to be lodged precariously in my back seat. She beamed when the list was complete. We left for dinner.
At a small Greek diner we crafted a poem for a friend of hers recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She’ll love it, Mom said of our poorly rhymed stanzas and ridiculous word pairings. I brought up religion, God, and she told me what she believed. Hell does not exist, no, but there is another place, a better place, perhaps? No, I don’t know if I’ll see your father there; I don’t know if I’d recognize him. Yes, there are people I don’t think I’d want to see if I end up there. Which we will, because we’ve lived half decent lives, and we haven’t killed anyone. Yet. We talked about good grandparents, ones who didn’t seem to know how to parent but excelled with their next generation. There were giggles and details previously unrevealed and many an olive. She celebrated my current victory over hives. I paid the tab and beamed. I’d gotten to see my mother.
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Ah, the fraught relationships we have with our mothers. I’m proud of you that you could let your anger go and be in the moment with her when she was ready, so that you could have that experience. I carry my weights around too often and act out in exactly the passive aggressive ways I fault my mom for.
Such a delicate and tenuous dance between mother and daughter. So very different from all the other relationships in our lives, but it touches each and every one in profound ways.
Oh, but you know what…. I bet you really made your mom happy. As one who has learned to live alone for the past few years – it gets to be stressful when there’s just so many things you can’t do or don’t know how to do… if she’s anything like me, those little chores were probably worrying her to death. She didn’t think of you as Cinderella… more like Salvation…. ‘cuz sometimes it’s the little things in life that really matter the most… and it’s pretty awesome to think you’re the kind of person your mother feels she can count on to help her. You are blessed.
Oh, I know some of these feelings so well.
Whenever I’m close to tearing my hair out over some nearly impossible task set before me by my elderly father, I remind myself: 1) he obviously thinks I’m a friggin’ superhero, and 2) he had to perform far worse tasks for me when I was pooping in diapers and projectile vomiting baby formula onto his freshly pressed shirt. After a lifetime of feeling like we don’t measure up to our parents’ expectations, isn’t it nice to reach a point where they think we can do ANYTHING? (Including cut cat nails and deal with Comcast…)
Sometimes people have a hard time letting other people in and it takes some time for them to be ready. Even in a mother-daughter relationship, I think this can be the case. It’s good that you were patient and got to see her, the real her, later on.
Also, I gave you an award. I know that probably seems totally weird and backwards, given that you don’t know me, and I’ve only read your past four posts but… I like to do things differently. I’m trying to find some new blogs to read, and I really like yours. The most logical way to acknowledge that is to “give” you a little computer icon right? Of course right. Anyhow, I’m Alanna, I like your blog, and that is all.
You are a good daughter. And, obviously, your mom knows it. Even when she’s annoying the hell out of you, (or you her) she appreciates you.
oh the dance we dance …. family drives you crazy but (hopefully) is there for you when you fall
sounds like a pretty cool mother’s day all in all (for your mother that is hahaha)
Thank for you sharing honestly and eloquently. I can totally relate.
you are the sweetest daughter.
thank you for such transparency…not that our relationships ever are (especially mother/daughter), but for bringing forth the complex bits that also hold the gift of grace!
At least you left beaming (forced or otherwise). My last communication with my mom a few days ago was the ending of argument about the gift I gave her. Only mothers can drive us this crazy.
It’s a bitch to rhyme mastectomy.
But then I celebr8ted Mom’s Day by leaving town and spending too much on Hawaiian flowers. I’m a good son that way.
Thank you for sharing so openly and honestly. This was the Mother’s Day I decided not to dance. Not on Mother’s Day and not ever again. I am still only 90% sure I’ve made the right decision.