At my age, my mother had been a mother for ten plus years. Imagine me, the mother of a twelve year old – the mistakes I have made in the last decade; the disappointments I have faced, the struggle to find myself and be true to her, the difficulty in facing what I have become, the sadness in the acceptance of what I am not. Imagine all of this, accompanying the trial of motherhood.

Without the transparency of my own shortcomings I judged her, not as a woman who gave the best of herself, I judged her as one looks upon the stone of Rodin, not as the flesh and blood that she is.

With age comes clarity and gratitude, perhaps its greatest gift.

I see her now, my mother, as I should have looked upon her long ago. Without the intolerance of her imperfections I see her, as a woman once a child. Without the misgivings of her intentions I see her, as a woman who loved her own child.

And I, the child, blessed to know that she was loved.

understandings

As a child I saw my parents as infallible. They were all I knew of what was good and what was right with the world, they appeared flawless; my father could do no wrong for I knew of no wrong to be done. I assumingly saw their role as that of protector, of mentor; I viewed their knowledge of the world as unadulterated. I heard and trusted their word as truth, not yet aware that I would one day find my own truths for which to live by.
Childhood is the blissfulness of not yet being fully aware. A view of the world still untarnished, unblemished . . . untainted with the understanding of loss, of hate, of ignorance, of disappointment and of fear. Childhood is unsoiled with the blood of war, or at least it should be.
So imagine my disillusionment to discover that my parents were not the superheroes I once supposed them to be; coming to the self-realization that they have the same capacity for mistakes as I.

Flawed.

Imperfect.

Human.

And I, in this body once child, no longer unmindful of all that is ugly in this world.

The Hours

I watched the movie “The Hours” several weeks ago, its characters have been lingering alongside me since. One of my favorite movies, it is an adaptation of the Pullitzer Prize winning novel of the same name. Written by Michael Cunningham, the story chronicles the life of Virginia Woolf (played by Nicole Kidman) with a modern day Mrs. Dalloway (played by Meryl Streep) as their lives are interconnected through Laura (played by Julianne Moore). The film begins with a depiction of Virginia Woolf’s suicide in the River Ouse in 1941. The film is deeply moving. The first time I saw the film I softly cried. All three women must confront suicide: one is fighting madness, one is fighting for her life, and one is fighting someone else’s fight.

Some see Woolf’s suicide as an act of cowardice. I see Virginia as courageous. She was falling into madness again, having been there many times before she recognized within herself the strength to not allow her mind to fall once more– she recognized that when she slipped back into the abyss she took those she loved with her. She acted with fortitude and gallantry, saving both herself and those she loved.

my nephews

Here are two of the new little men in our lives!