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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
A MOTHER'S HEART 2002-10-06 When I went into labor with my first child, my mother-in-law cried. I was told later by another family member that she felt bad for me because she was sure I didn't know how painful the whole process of childbirth would be. She was, of course, referring to the physical pain I would endure, but I believe she knew something else that I still had to learn: how painful mothering can be - not just childbirth, but all of it. All mothers make countless visits to the pediatrician, kiss thousands of cuts and scrapes, listen to endless conversations of frustration and disappointment, and weather the storms of sibling rivalry, individual failures and broken hearts. Some watch as their children go off to war, some lose a child to illness, accident or violence. Each one of these things is painful for a mother, some things painful beyond imagination. Over the years I have had my own small heartbreaks and witnessed those of other mothers. After the birth of my first child, I had three more children, and although the times of laughter and joy were numerous, so were the times of anguish. There was the day all parents can identify with, the day my not quite five year old daughter went to kindergarten for the first time. All dressed up in a blue cotton dress, chosen especially for this occasion, she crossed over the threshold into her kindergarten classroom, turned to wave good-bye and said "I love you mommy." She was so tiny and she was leaving me for a few hours to start a new adventure in the world. I cried all the way home. As the years went on and my children grew older, there were the broken arms and broken hearts, the loss of a toy and the loss of friends, the pain of a bruised leg and the humiliation of a bruised ego. There were the disappointments over not being chosen as cheerleader, not making the varsity team or not getting into a certain college. And worst of all, for me though not for them, there were the moves away from home. When my daughter, my oldest child, went away to college at the age of 17, I was reminded of that little four year old waving goodbye at the kindergarten door. Where had the intervening 13 years gone? When my husband and I drove off after moving her into her dorm 60 miles away, I cried again, although not nearly as hard as I cried when we moved my son into his dorm 3000 miles away. As the years passed and I helped each of my children move out, I felt the same mix of emotions - joy for them and their new adventure and sadness for me that my babies had grown up so fast. I have come to believe that a mother's heart breaks a little every day. The sad times and even the happy times can bring tears to a mother's eyes. But above all, a mother is always aware that every day, the infant that once grew within her body, grows a little further away. If all is going well and she is doing a good job, each morning her child wakes up a little more competent, a little more independent and a little more prepared to make his way in the world without her. Now my daughter is a mother and just as my mother-in-law cried for me, I have cried for her as I see the joy and heartbreak she feels every day. When Sean falls and cuts himself, her heart breaks a little. When she picks him up after he's been crying in his crib, refusing to take a nap, and he kisses her with love and relief, her heart breaks again. When he was in the hospital recently, weak and helpless, and she was terrified, her heart broke a little more. I have told her that a mother's heart is a fragile thing because it no longer breaks just for her - it breaks for the child she is connected to for all time. I think she is beginning to understand. |