The day she separated our coffee mugs –
That was the day for sure.
I had thought I could hold it together, and be brave stepping into this new world of independent children, but for some reason the sight of my oldest daughter, Alena, separating out what had been our shared morning routine… That was the one.
She was getting married at 19.
She had asked me to trust her, but that night was the final straw for my mental state for some reason, and I got myself into therapy quickly after, and used up boxes of tissues as I wept on the counselors couch for several months; Boxes as I talked about my life with her, starting from the moment I had stared in shock at the two pink lines appearing,
and realized I was expecting the most unexpected in her.
I’ve always known letting go of my girls would be a hard thing to do.
I have cherished the years of toys strewn around, their boisterous laughter, and little ones under-foot.
From the time I was small I knew that a mother was the only thing I cared to be; My identity.
The way I was just supposed to sit there and watch as life as I knew it was ending, being packed away, felt like a form of torture to me.
The wedding did happen, and I am grateful to say that she married an absolutely wonderful man.
The way that he looks at her, and treats her would make any parent happy.
I would not have hand-chosen any different than him.
She proved to me that even though it had been hard for me at the time, I could trust her.
She had chosen well.
They settled in, and I slowly stood back up.
Life around here resumed again.
Alena and her husband Aaron moved into a small apartment after the wedding on the far side of the next town; Close enough I could still visit occasionally, but far enough for some separation for them.
The week after the wedding, with tears still frequently in my eyes, my husband and I planted two small wisteria plants they had used in their wedding as decoration in our yard, hoping one day they would grow over their wedding arch that was also out there, almost like an act of remembrance of the life we had built with our bare hands.
One day I hoped we could look at it and see in it a symbol we could pass though:
Our hard work in full-bloom.
The years passed and I got into a rhythm that has helped distract me from the way it feels when you’re in the middle years.
There is an emptiness when the kids grow up and change, but you’re just left standing there feeling like the same old you you’ve always been.
The other girls have grown and now talk about when they get to leave one day, too,
and I have not missed Alena less.
Children weave their tendrils, and even when they grow up and move on you still bear the marks that their winding left.
The loneliness of these years has been heavy on me.
I have a crease now between my eyebrows like its footprint.
Who I am is so tied up in my mothering.
I struggle with the silence now where all the small voices used to be.
I just am not me without them, I think.
I never visualized what was past them.
It was never something I really wanted to see.
But sometimes when you least expect good things, that is when they come,
and last year in October the house beside us became available,
and Alena and her husband Aaron moved in.
My daughter virtually moved back home.
The fullness I’ve felt in having her close enough to share our coffee time again…
It was the biggest joy I could have dreamed of,
Until one day a few months ago when she and Aaron came walking in my door carrying a bag from Target, holding it out to me, saying casually a simple,
“Here. We got something for you.”
My first thought was that it was a new bottle of vanilla.
I knew I kept borrowing hers and meaning to get more.
But inside the bag were another two pink lines that I wasn’t expecting,
but this time the two pink lines were hers.
My baby girl is having a baby.
They really do not lie about the joy.
Everyone else in the house fussed, “Well, what is it?!” as I stared into that bag because I was so stunned in that moment I had neglected to pass the bag on to show them.
That plastic bag held a lifetime of meaning.
I barely knew how to form the words.
Now she will experience this all for herself; All of the loving and longing, joy and sadness that come with being a mom.
I will be right beside her, eyes on her, there to help catch her just like I always was.
This weekend we found out that the baby will be a little girl.
As the cake was cut revealing its pink center layer at the gender reveal, I heard my husband, Justin, mumble, “I’m NEVER getting a boy,”
but when I looked in his eyes I saw that they were brimming with tears like mine were.
It’s right back to the beginning for us.
Back to little footsteps and voices as they once were,
pulled back out of the silence by the tiny hand of a new baby girl.
Last night Alena came over asking to go out into the garage.
She wanted to get down the bins of old baby clothes I’d kept, of which there are many from all these girls.
She held up each thing in the light, assessing which items had maybe been hers, and in my heart I held every one of them. I remembered the smell of four newborn babies.
I remembered when my eyes, hands, and thoughts were in the place of hers.
I remembered being in a room alone with just a baby and my new identity; Mother to a little girl.
Wasn’t I just folding these things to put away?
Wasn’t I just buttoning those?
Wasn’t I just up late rocking her?
Nose buried,
– Take it in. Take it in. –
Inhaling the scent of thick brown curls?
She carried the bins out the door last night to go right next door to her house with them,
and I thought about the passing of time, and how sometimes
just when you think it’s all over, it only restarts again.
In our yard this week, for the first time, I noticed that the wisteria has started to bloom for the very first time.
The timing of those pastel buds felt impeccable.
New life on the vine, a new life for me, new life dressed in the clothes I saved coming soon.
For years I have lived in this house with an old gate between the two properties rusted and latched closed.
I can’t wait to walk through the garden to open it up wide for a little sing-songy voice calling out for her Grandma.
I can’t wait to take her tiny hand,
and walk her back up past the wisteria that stands for the explosion of family, and life,
and I will tell her all the stories and hopes that lived in my heart for all of the little girls that came
between those two sets of double pink lines.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
