Loving the Skin We’re In

The following is written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.

My mother is in town for my daughter’s wedding.
For months now she has been working on her health, and has dropped nearly 40 pounds.
I was congratulating her on that fact as she drove the other day, and she replied,
“Thanks. Too bad I still have all THIS though,” which is when she threw her right arm over to the passenger side, nearly chopping me in the face, and wildly jostled the loose skin under her arms.
“Ooh! Can I feel it?” I asked her,
reaching up to touch it, and I was instantly taken back to being a child and how much I’d loved feeling that part of her arms even then.
Smooth and soft.
It made me smile.
She had held me in the crook of them so many times.

My mother has, for the most part, always been slightly overweight.
Her side of the family likes to joke that there’s a picture of a pat of butter embroidered on their family crest.
Her mother was nicknamed “Thelma Thanksgiving,” if that tells you anything.
That matriarch threw down at LEAST 2 million biscuits.

Therefore, growing up it was a soft body that held me when I cried.
I didn’t have a runner mom.
I never once heard her talk about reps.
My mom was a soft place to run to,
and I loved that fact so much.
Her hugs have always been some of the very best, because they make you feel truly wrapped up.

As a child sitting next to her in church, I’d sometimes reach over and roll the loose skin of her elbow between my fingers to keep myself quiet, like the very first fidget toy.

The feel of those arms has brought comfort to me in more ways than I could ever lay out on a page.
Year after year, and trial after painful trial;
And that was all that I saw before me as she sat there waving her arms in my face,
poking fun at her own body.

“Seriously! Look at that!” She laughed, shaking her arm even harder.
“I did look at it. I’ve looked at it for years and I actually love it. It’s glorious. I hope it stays that way forever.”
“You’re crazy,” she said, finally putting her arm down.
“I know,” I smiled.

What would it be like if we could all see ourselves the way those who love us do?
I’m sure we’d jump into the frame of a whole lot more pictures then.
What if every time my girls told me,
“You look pretty, Mama,” I just believed them,
and smiled more boldly,
and didn’t wonder if they were just saying that to be nice,
or thought to myself, “Compared to what?”

What if instead of picking ourselves apart we truly appreciated our bodies,
no matter what,
simply for the fact that they are capable of giving and receiving love?

I didn’t see something disgusting there.
She may have seen a flaw, but
I saw arms that were my first home.

Today I sat beside her in a doctor’s office waiting room, concerned over some tests she had just had run.
I looked at her hands there clutched in her lap and almost didn’t recognize them for how much older they are beginning to appear.

I reached over then and gently touched the top of her hand with my index finger thinking about how identical to her mother’s they look now.
Thelma Thanksgiving – Living on in her.

She began to talk immediately about the look of her skin, how it is thinning, and the age spots that are spreading.
She couldn’t have known that what I was thinking about in that moment was that I treasure every part of her,
and my memories of her one day will be beautiful ones in part due to those speckled hands and wildly-waving arms.

The hands that soothed me,
and the arms that I still run to.

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.