Dear Mom

It is, perhaps, cosmic retribution that children punish you for the sins of your youth by re-enacting those sins themselves. 

An old friend recently busted her seventh-grade daughter for getting up to no good. Exactly what, I'm not sure, but if it's half as bad as anything her mother and I did than you're gonna want to trust me on this: you don't want to know. 

My friend actually apologized to her mother for her teen years thinking that she was running afoul of Karma now. 

"Hasn't helped," she said. 

Mercifully, I'm eight years shy of our entree into teen-age drama and indiscretions. I can't help but think of my mother, though, nearly everyday as I navigate parenthood  and wonder whether I'll survive with my sanity intact. 

In the interest of avoiding Karma, I offer my own apology. For the toddler years anyway. I don't have the stomach for the teen-age stuff. So, without further adieu: 

Dear Mom: 

I'm sorry for every time you prepared a meal with care that I wouldn't eat. 

For the time you walked through the grocery store, probably on a night when you were weary and defeated and didn't want to be there, and came across some sweet potatoes and thought "A-ha! My kids will like that." 

And you went up and down the aisles and filled the cart with treats for school and meals for a week and toiletries to clean us and you dragged it all into the house. By yourself. And put it away. By yourself. When you rather would have been sleeping or reading or watching "Dallas" in its heyday. 

Then you made the meal on a glorious fall evening when you would have preferred to be outside gardening. On a day when I was acting like a shit. Or Dawn was. Or Tony was. Or worse, we all were. 

But you roasted the pork loin and cooked the potatoes for 90 minutes and scalded your fingers scooping the orange innards out. Maybe you ran your hand under the cold water before shaking cinnamon over the steaming heap and mashing in butter and milk because that's what your children loved. 

Somehow you managed to get the table set, the food put out, our hands washed and our bottoms seated when the complaining commenced. "I don't like that." "I don't want that." "Yuk!" "Gross!" "I want apple sauce." "Give me squeezy yogurt."

About that Mom, the details may have been different, but it happened. And I'm sorry. 

I can't believe that you made it through our childhood without strangling me. Or Dawn. Or Tony. All of us.

Or yourself.

I'm sorry for the days when you felt that in having us you lost a piece of you. 

I'm sorry for bitching about picking up my mess or moaning about going to quiet time, using the toilet, sitting still or whatever it was you asked. 

I'm sorry I made the hard days harder.

I'm sorry for the times I didn't say '"Thank you" and for the days I didn't notice. 

I'm sorry for the sleepless nights and the anxiety I caused you. 

I'm sorry I once made you so angry you cussed. At me. 

Did I shout 'Bad Mommy!' back? If I did, I'm sorry about that too. 

It's brutal work being a Mom. And I never knew that when I was a kid. Big apology for that one. 

I've thanked you over the years for your devotion, your love, your encouragement, your time, your creativity, your commitment. But it's only just now - when I feel swallowed by the chaos of four - that I've actually been able to put myself in your shoes. And, let's be real,  most days you weren't wearing Manolo Blahniks. 

I'm sorry about that. Really, truly, profoundly sorry.

Comments

[Michelle T]

Wow! Thanks so much for putting this all into words! Especially today! I think I owe my Mom a big apology today. While I was a sweet toddler who sought to please, I was somewhat of a hell-raiser in my teen years. I am desparately hoping that perhaps my four are going through the toughest stages early and that things will only get easier! Ha!