Mothering our Mothers
February 2nd 2010 20:09
I've been gone for a while. And though I've been trying to get myself together to come back, it's been difficult. The story of where I have been is long and tiresome and I won't bore my readers with all the minute details.
Let it be enough to say that I lost someone very dear to me. Not my The Grandmama, my dear mother is still with us, thankfully. The person I lost was a dear aunt who left us after a lingering illness. Her passing though has changed things somewhat. I suddenly realized that after countless years of feeling like a child, I am indeed not a child. My cousins and I are the adults, we have children of our own. And the adults, the people I look to for guidance and support are old people. And they are fragile. And one day soon, they will be gone.
That's a sobering thought in and of itself. In the blink of an eye I went from turning to my mom for advice about everything to calling her to inquire about her medication schedule or her eating habits. Accepting that our parents are only human, that they will one day be gone forces us to acknowledge our own mortality. To realize that mortality is looming on the horizon and will catch up to us eventually.
So we wake up one day and find ourselves parenting two generations. Our parents who are still with us and who in their age need us. And our children who are young and still need us. It is a strange place to be.
I like to keep this blog a little on the light side. And this post is a little heavy. I just wanted to explain that I've been off getting myself back together. And now I am back. I do hope we can pick up where we left off.
Let it be enough to say that I lost someone very dear to me. Not my The Grandmama, my dear mother is still with us, thankfully. The person I lost was a dear aunt who left us after a lingering illness. Her passing though has changed things somewhat. I suddenly realized that after countless years of feeling like a child, I am indeed not a child. My cousins and I are the adults, we have children of our own. And the adults, the people I look to for guidance and support are old people. And they are fragile. And one day soon, they will be gone.
That's a sobering thought in and of itself. In the blink of an eye I went from turning to my mom for advice about everything to calling her to inquire about her medication schedule or her eating habits. Accepting that our parents are only human, that they will one day be gone forces us to acknowledge our own mortality. To realize that mortality is looming on the horizon and will catch up to us eventually.
So we wake up one day and find ourselves parenting two generations. Our parents who are still with us and who in their age need us. And our children who are young and still need us. It is a strange place to be.
I like to keep this blog a little on the light side. And this post is a little heavy. I just wanted to explain that I've been off getting myself back together. And now I am back. I do hope we can pick up where we left off.
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