A Mother's Love

This Valentine's Day, I'm reflecting on the power of a mother's love in the present and in the past.

It’s the first Saturday of February, and I’m home with my two sick daughters. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so I pull out everything we’d need to make cards: colored pencils, silk crayons, cardstock, oversized glue sticks, kid-friendly scissors, heart-shaped Post-Its, and red and white ribbon. To set the mood, I turn on a Spotify playlist with kid-friendly love songs that both the girls and I can enjoy while we work.

Photo by Rinck Content Studio on Unsplash

Eagerly and decisively, my daughters and I choose our tools and materials and get to it. I watch them as they begin to construct their love notes, and I am enchanted by their creative choices. I can’t help but contemplate how fascinating human beings are—how even in the earliest stage of life, humans have an innate proclivity to create. And I wonder if my mother also had the same thought whenever she watched me create art when I was their same ages: two and three.

As I begin to explain Cupid’s holiday and how it will be celebrated in my oldest daughter’s preschool class, “All We Need is Love” by the Beatles begins to play from our living room speakers. My oldest grabs one of the pink Post-It hearts, just as my youngest goes for the same heart, and my youngest begins to lose it by screaming and flailing her arms. 

I stand up, pick my youngest daughter up, and hold her tight in my arms. I state the facts and validate her feelings: “Your sister got to the heart first. You wanted it, too, didn’t you? It sounds like you're sad or maybe mad about that.”

She nods her head in agreement, and I sway from side-to-side, resting my hand on her back and humming to the popular tune as the trumpet shoves its way through the sun-soaked room. I can feel her heartbeat regulating, her warm body cooling, her hold tightening.

I begin to cry quiet tears while wiping away her loud ones. 

The Beatles’ song takes me back to my “Beatles-era,” depressed-teen days: the painful time of adolescence—very similar to this time of matrescence—where I faced profound grief, waving goodbye to my old self as a new self emerged.

I remember feeling so unloveable back then. 

No boys were interested in me: the girl who wore Walmart-brand eyeglasses, Goodwill-purchased clothing, Medicaid-paid braces, and Loreal box-dyed hair that looked a little too orange instead of the intended auburn. I was the girls who always told the truth, made straight As, and had zero close friends. 

I was, in my mind, a walking tragedy.

But then something miraculous happened on Valentine’s Day of my sophomore year of high school. During Algebra II class, a student aid delivered a balloon that read, “Be Mine,” and a small bouquet of red roses with a white teddy bear attached. The typed-out note on the card that came along with the gift read: “From your Secret Admirer.” 

As the Valentine’s bounty was placed on my desk, my face turned as red as the candy-apple red heart embroidered on the white teddy bear. 

My initial thought: OH MY GOD, it’s finally happening! I felt like I had grown Cupid’s wings and could soar right out of the room. The surreal experience was a replica of one of the plots of my favorite 90s teen rom-coms, where the nerdy girl is finally recognized by her crush. 

Time slowed down, and I beamed for the first time in a long, long time. I blushed as my classmates noticed and stared at me with their eyes full of question marks and… envy?

The mystery of my secret admirer took up all of my headspace for the remainder of the school day. At every class change, I frantically scanned the faces of all of my crushes in the hallways and in my classes—nothing.

Despite not knowing my secret admirer’s identity, I had a really great day that day—maybe even one of the best days I had ever had in high school. 

I floated. I walked on water.

I felt ethereal and chosen.

When I returned home from school that day, I was greeted by my mom who had the most keen and giddy smile. Immediately, I knew something was up. I expected her to ask me to babysit my three siblings for the trillionth time. 

Instead, she asked: “So, did you have a good day today, sweetie?”

And then I knew. I did not have a secret admirer. The boy did not exist.

My own mother was the sender. 

How pathetic, I thought. I yelled, “Oh my god, Mom! Why would you do this to me?” And, I turned and stomped up the stairs to my bedroom, humiliated.

And now, twenty-one years later, I’m weeping as I shush and hum to my youngest. I wish I could go back in time and give my mom the reaction I should have given her: a hug, a kiss, or a “thank you” for loving me so unabashedly. 

My mom married my dad at 16 and brought me into this world at 17. She made a lot of mistakes; she wasn’t the perfect mother. She was not emotionally mature enough to have children at such an early age, and she married someone who wasn’t fit to be a loving husband or father. 

But, she made a lot of choices, mostly the right ones, too. Above all, she loved her children with “all her heart,” as she signed in every single one of our personalized holiday and birthday cards.

And it’s in this moment of remembrance and reflection that I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for my mother, my children, my husband (who also happens to be my high school sweetheart), and this perfectly imperfect life.

I don’t have it all, but I also have it all.

As my youngest daughter’s tears dry up and her body calms, she points down to the floor, requesting to be put down. She runs back to her original spot on the floor by her sister. My oldest gives her a different heart-shaped Post-It, and she beams, lighting up the room. She’s our newest sun.

I praise my oldest daughter for her choice and think about how I, too, am not a perfect mother and about how I’m also making choices, mostly the right ones, too. The evidence to support this claim lives within the two tiny human beings right in front of me, who are actively learning to be kind and considerate towards one another.

The anger and resentment towards my mother about her poor life decisions begin to moderately fade as I begin to understand what it means to be a mother and the difficulty of “the job.”

Tears continue to stream down my round cheeks as I think about how my mother did “the job,” even in the most dire and grim of circumstances while married to an emotionally-abusive narcissist.

My daughters do not notice their mom’s wet face. They are happily crafting.

And it’s at this moment that the Spotify gods check the vibe, shuffle to the next song, and select James Taylor’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You).” 

I smile and begin to softly, tearfully, sing along, joining my daughters on the wonderfully messy floor.