I'm Kind of a Big Baby When it Comes to My Mom

My mom came in to town today to go back to school shopping for the girls with me.  It's the first time I've seen her since she called to tell me she has cancer. My mom was clearly in pain, though she denied it when I asked her.  After she left, my oldest daughter followed her outside, as she always does, and stood in the front yard, waving, until my mom was long gone.  My daughter has always done this-- since she was able to wave.  When she was a baby she'd sit at the window of our old house and tell my mom "wave up and down the hill!" I believe this was her first sentence.  And my mom would.  She'd open her car window, no matter how cold, or rainy, or icy it was, and she'd wave until she got all the way up the hill. And my daughter would sit on the back of the couch, behind the curtain, waving, her face pressed against the glass.  "Bye Grandma!" she'd scream. "Bye!"

I was a terrible teenager.  From about twelve on, I was overtaken by the devil of teenage-osity.  I snuck out, I smoked, I drank, I dated all the wrong boys, I tried drugs (I wasn't very good at them, but I tried really hard). I was all the things mothers pray they won't have when they get baby girls in the hospital.  And I despised my mother. I attempted to manipulate her (and succeeded quite a bit). I lied to her, I abused her, I took advantage of her generosity.  If it was wrong, I did it. I had no interest in a relationship with my mom.  I just wanted her to get out of my way.

But then I had a daughter.  And I was a single mother.  Except I wasn't, because my mom showed up.  She rocked the baby, she held that baby, she bought that baby everything she needed, then some.  She took the baby to church with her so I could sleep in.  And my daughter loved my mother.  I wouldn't ask, because I wouldn't like the answer, who my daughter loves more.  It's my mom.  And I'm so glad for both of them.

So, today when my mom left my daughter ran outside to wave up and down the hill.  And I went into the kitchen and cried some.

"She's still out there," my partner said. "You can catch her."

But I didn't. I went into the garage and watched out the window as my daughter stood and waved, then just stood, staring down the street that my mother had long since turned off of.