Tessa climbed in bed beside me this morning saying she was not feeling well.
Dark circles under her eyes.
A sense of sadness on her face.
And I didn’t really wonder why.
She and I have been struggling so much lately.
The one most like me, at 14, suddenly often feeling foreign, hard to fully know.
I feel like I’m having trouble breaking through to where she is.
Last night had been a tough one for us.
She’d gotten frustrated. I’d gotten mad.
I had asked my husband to come take over bed time.
We all went to bed feeling defeated.
So, when she climbed beside me it felt good,
but also a little bit like worry that we would start the same patterns all over again.
I was on my phone, but I could feel her just laying there staring; I think not able to even speak what she needed.
I put my phone aside, and turned towards her.
She closed her eyes,
both of us laying there wondering what move to make to bridge the growing gap in the air.
I thought of what I’d want if I were laying next to my own mother feeling needy.
What thing she would do that no one else could, in my mind.
And I knew it was her hands massaging my head, and my face.
I can still feel them soothing me.
I hope that I always will.
When I was sick.
When I was stressed.
Wiping my tears.
Sending me gently off to sleep in my pitch black room as if they had erased an entire world of worries with their care.
I wondered how long it had been since I’d just silently stroked Tessa’s head like that for awhile.
It’s easy to remember to do that kind of thing for Chloe. She presses into you until it’s impossible to ignore her.
And Paige…she still climbs in my lap.
She still asks me to be held.
But Tessa,
strong on the outside, and often frustrating in her approach, can sometimes get overlooked, because she carries her needs at the base of her throat until they choke her.
Often times I realized I don’t hug her except at bed time.
But her love language is time spent;
And hugs only at bed time are merely my scraps, aren’t they?
Oh, God forgive me.
Have I been giving her scraps of myself?
Everything about her has screamed she needs soothing.
Could it really be so simple as this?
So I moved my hand to her head.
I noticed the familiar feel of her shiny hair.
I noticed how much my hand is starting to look like my own mother’s,
and I thought about how I hope it will act as hers did:
Willing to stop what she was doing and use her hands to give what was needed for all of my 46 years.
Loving touch.
Time.
Hope, and forgiveness.
I hoped she would reach out to take them.
I rubbed Tessa’s head for 45 minutes without either of us speaking a word.
We just lay there and breathed,
and as we did, she scooted closer and closer until she was pressed right up against me when she whispered,
“That feels so good,” and then whispered,
“I love you,” and I whispered that I loved her, too.
It’s easy as a parent to feel like you have done absolutely all you can think of to reach your child,
but today I felt like the thing that reached her was something I had overlooked that she needed because she never asks.
Today our entire day was different,
and I think it was because I saw her laying there and remembered just how it felt to be next to the person you believed could smooth every kind of pain away.
One who would never try to hurt you.
After our good day, I asked her to ride alone to the store with me to get dinner.
While we were there, I watched her quietly walk by the flower display and gently trace her fingers along the only deep red single rose left to be sold.
And I saw it then:
She,
the stand-alone rose.
Sometimes
you just have to touch them.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said, still just seeing HER. “So beautiful.”
I bought her that rose.
She carried it home so excited.
I helped her put it in a vase, and she put it beside her bed in the exact same spot our battle happened last night;
I think to remind me that beauty,
if we give it a space,
loves to replace brokenness.
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.
