Remembering Mama

Happy Mother's Day--to all the mamas out there, including my own, wherever she may be. This is for you, Mama.

I remember you more kindly now than I did before, when my stomach would roil and churn with agony over what was happening to you and over memories of what you had done to us--but worse, of what you did to yourself. There's a lot of press these days about "bad mothers" (almost a confession of pride, it seems), but when you were a young mother, the rules were so different. You handmade clothing for me and starched that fabric so stiffly that maybe people couldn't tell the fabric was cheap and limp. The starch gave me huge red welts wherever the fabric rubbed against my body, but that wasn't your fault.

Speaking of starch, I'm sorry for the time I washed the little crocheted shoes (one of your few knickknacks) and to my horror, they became a tangled wet limp mass of yarn. I didn't know that in my attempt to clean them, I would destroy what made them stand alone like Cinderella's glass slippers. Starch is a magic thing. We could have restarched them and reshaped them. I know that now. But then, I took you at your word, that I had destroyed them and that you could never have anything pretty because your kids always destroyed it. That was nearly fifty years ago, Mama, and I still feel guilty.

I find myself these days wishing that I could have some kind of confirmation of the kind of mother I've been to my two sons. One day I think I've done okay. The next, I wonder why in the world I ever tackled motherhood, given how horribly I've done at it. It's sad when I tell myself, "Well, they both survived, and neither of them has gone to jail or gotten addicted to drugs." That actually is a mark of mothering success where I come from. But unlike so many women I know, I can't point to my child, the prodigy, or my child, the star athlete or award-winning poet or artist or whatever. I didn't push my boys that much, though they probably would find that debatable. They are good people. They are intelligent. They have talent. So what if they haven't succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Let's ask Bernie Madoff's mother if she's proud. The Marquis de Sade probably had a mother who thought her son was adorable. Even Hitler's mother probably thought her son was the best. Not every mother gets to be the mother to a hero or saint. In fact, darned few get that option.

I'm glad that I was and am a mother. I look forward to one day being a grandmother. I like being a mother-in-law. I like being a teacher who mothers her students.

At least some of that is because of you, Mama. So thank you. Rest in peace.