A MOTHERLESS DAUGHTER’S MOTHER’S DAY

 

A MOTHERLESS DAUGHTER’S MOTHER’S DAY BLOG

“Mother’s Day bothered me, if I thought about it. I used to give Mother’s Day gifts to my Nana, but after she died I started hiding them in the back of my closet. I don’t know why I didn’t just throw them away. Anyway, they stopped having us make Mother’s Day projects by second grade. It was just cards, and cards are easier to get rid of. Mother’s Day still came and went every year. Come to think of it, I hated Mother’s Day.” 

Gabby Weiss (age 12)

 

It took me until I was thirty-eight (I swear, I can pinpoint the year) before I realized that growing up without a mother was not the handicap I had always thought it was. I didn’t need to look around with panic that I had lost out on the important secrets to womanhood. That I was less than for the lack of maternal lessons I assumed others were being taught, either directly or through osmosis.

I learned that in fact, there were plenty of girls who had mothers that didn’t know what the heck they were doing either. It was this understanding I proudly gave to Gabby Weiss
in my first published novel,  What Every Girl (except me) knows . So this year for Mother’s Day I want to honor some of those other mothers in my life. The ones I found.
The ones I chose.

In no particular order:

Rhoda Nemerofsky
Bobbie Becker
Jean Simon
Bernice Rothstein
Maggie Soderlind and Harriet Stein*
Emma Rodríguez

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day, Rhoda Nemerofsky 

You were the first to bring me to a family dinner table, and make me feel like
I belonged there. You were the first to give me an inkling that being part of a family
was not conditional. It isn’t about what you do for someone, but about who you are. 
Just because you are. 

Remember when I came over after my ten-speed crashed off the side of Mountain Road heading up to Mohonk? I tore the skin from both my hands, my forearms, and my legs from the top of my thighs to my shins.

You cleaned me up that day, and when the wounds became infected weeks later, you insisted on taking care of me again, gently removing the scabs and rubbing on antibiotic ointment– because you were a nurse.  And because you had made me a chosen daughter.

Happy Mother’s Day, Bobbie Becker

It was the afternoon I came to your house to introduce you to my newborn, my first baby.  He was tired and got fussy, and you suggested I lay him down for a nap in your guest room. The one right off the kitchen? I nursed him as I always did, but instead of delicately getting up when I was sure he was fast asleep so I could come out and visit, I closed my eyes. For just a minute. Three and a half hours later we both woke up.  It felt wonderful!  My brain was reset. But I was in disbelief. My baby had never slept more than an hour-and-a-half at time, and therefore, neither had I.

So why at your house did he sleep so well? And not at home? In his crib?

You barely gave my bewilderment a second thought.  Because, you told me, matter-of-factly as was your style, my baby and I had been sleeping together, side by side. Did you know that in that moment you gave me permission to be a mother?  To mother the way that felt natural and right to me. With attachment. Listening to my instincts and following my heart. Not following instructions in a How-to-Have-a-Baby-sleep-Through-the-Night- book.

That, and you taught me about keeping a utensil caddy on the kitchen counter, filled with forks and knives and spoons at the ready. A genius of an idea that I still love to pieces. 

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day, Jean Simon

Why do we see each other everywhere? The pharmacy? Trader Joes? I think it is because you are in –what Kurt Vonnegut calls in his novel Cat’s Cradle –my Karass. You know? That circle of people who are cosmically linked. People with a connection that draws them together for reasons that are not outwardly evident.

Because other than those repeated coincidences where you and I met, hugged, and said hello, we haven’t spent a whole lot of time together.
We have our mutual loves of course, your daughter and your grandchildren, but we don’t really know each other that well. And yet, you are the one who took my face in yours hands that day and told me, not that I was going to be okay, but that I was okay. 

And you, I believed. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Bernice Rothstein

In you, I saw a mother who cares for herself as much as her children and with that combination neither is diminished. How is this possible? You coo and kvell and dote. Your pride and the immense joy you get from your children is matched only by the joy they receive from you. There seems no distance you will not travel to be with them. Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Israel. 

And you do it not out of obligation. I’ve never seen you sprinkle guilt around the table. Your love does not come with strings. Because, as I see it, you are truly happy with yourself. 

It wasn’t from lack of hardship, or from a life of privilege that allowed you this, but because you believed you could have it. You wanted a life of your own, your own happiness and well as your children’s. And you managed to have both, beautifully. 

 

Maggie Sonderlind and Harriet Stein, Happy Birthday’s Day

I am putting you two together because that’s how we met, and that is how you both reside in my memory. Maggie and Harriet. Harriet and Maggie. The truth is, I didn’t really know either of you outside of the Poughkeepsie Day School, where you were co-teachers of the three-and-four-year olds and I was the assistant.  And where you taught me how to parent.

With twenty-five little toddlers around us every day, I watched. Not the kids so much, as I watched the two of you. 

I remember how you spoke to Manuel when he wouldn’t stop throwing cardboard blocks at some other kid’s head. How you reprimanded him without condemnation. Oh, the patience you both had! How you held back on immediate and overenthusiastic praise, explaining to me how that is not generous and kind, but lazy. 

I watched as you watched a child struggle to do something you easily could have stepped in and helped with, but didn’t. When a child spoke, you listened. You kept an impeccable classroom, a place for everything and everything in its place. We sang the clean-up song, that always came after a controlled chaos. Nothing seemed to ruffle your collective feathers.

I don’t always get it right, but yours was a gentle, loving, restrained, respectful nurturing. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Emma Rodríguez

I called you Mami. And I meant it. You showed me what it was to be on the other side of motherhood. You came back from Puerto Rico needing to be taken care of. And I watched the circle complete. I heard you had been a less than attentive mother to your young daughters, but now you were soft. Now you were passive, and pensive, and kind. 

 I paid attention when your daughter made a home for you in her home. She brought you to her own children, let them come to love you deeply, and you to love them. What a gift your daughter gave you. 

You were the mother my mother would have grown to be. The mother I would have cared for if my mother had stayed alive long enough to grow old. 

And perhaps, if my mother had also lived too long, as you did. And then if perhaps she couldn’t remember where she was, or what had just been said to her, and had lived out her days in a nursing home unable to speak. What does it mean when your own mother didn’t protect you, but you now have to protect her. What special kind of love does that require?

 I watched your daughter wash and gently comb your hair. Feed you and kiss your face. And in the end, I saw her lay her body next to yours to let you go. 

These were not biological mothers.

They were not mothers designated, or legally bound to be in that role. They were the women I found throughout my life, women, who whether they knew it or not, remain with me every day.

So Happy Mother’s Day, my moms
with love,
nora

 

*not their real names