contemplating motherhood

My Dearest Child,

Today is Mother’s Day, and I just turned 21 a few weeks ago.  Your dad and I have been married for a year and a half.  Usually around this time of year I think about my mother, your grandma.  I try to think of something I can buy, do, or make to express the inexpressible:  how much I love and appreciate her, and what a truly wonderful mother she is. No matter what I do each year though, it falls short.  How can I possibly repay all the love, support, protection, inspiration, courage, tenderness, honesty, and utter devotion she has shown to me the past 21 years?

This year, although it has crossed my mind before, especially around this time, I contemplate you.  You are not real to me yet.  You may already know me, may be watching me at this instant moment still in your preexistence (I’m not entirely sure how that works, honestly).  I like to think you see me and understand my shortcomings, the intricacies of my imperfections.  You know what you’re getting yourself into, and you still want to be mine anyway.  And for that I am so grateful.

You are not real to me yet. I imagine holding you in my arms for the first time.  Everyone says they didn’t know until that moment how much they could love someone.  I can’t fathom that yet.  I imagine your tiny fingers wrapped around mine, your fist smile, all the goofy phrases you’ll pick up when you start talking, your kindergarten school pictures, your scraped knees, your tickle spots, your baptism, your scouts uniform, your missing front teeth, your neighborhood friends, your first crush, your brace-face awkward grin on the first day of 8^th grade, going to all of the whatever sport you play games (at which I’ll be way too loud and enthusiastic and your dad will have to remind me to not be that parent), the excitement/terror I feel when you get your learner’s permit, the sheer horror I feel the first time you pull out of the driveway alone with a fresh license in your wallet, your first real date, your first school dance, your first (and hopefully last) run-in with the cops, your anxiety as you prepare to take SATs or ACTs (or whatever new/additional torture they’ve come up with to “assess” you) your first breakup, the first (of perhaps many) truly weird fashion statement/hairdo you do to blend in our stand out (just please don’t shave your head…your dad and I both have lumpy, strange heads so I can only imagine what you’ve inherited), your high school graduation.  Perhaps after that you will serve a mission, begin college, join the peacecorps or the military.

I can’t wait for the first time you change from a vague idea to a real human life I’ve somehow been entrusted with.  Maybe that realization will come when I first feel your awful little foot karate kick the inside of my ribs, or when we find out if you are a boy or a girl, or when I begin buying all your “I was born AWESOME” onesies, or when I first see you and all my exhaustion from hours (hours, and hours) of labor are suspended for a few heavenly moments and I take in all that is you. 

That won’t be for a while though; I’m not ready for you yet.  Everyone says no one is ever ready to be a parent, and that’s probably true.  To be honest though, I don’t yearn for you yet.  When I think too much about being a mother, I just break out in a cold sweat.  There are things I need to do first.  I had big plans when I graduated high school, but then I met your dad and I knew we should get married and basically he ruined all of them!  It’s not his fault; he couldn’t help being such a stud.  Nevertheless, I changed a lot of plans to be with him, a decision I’ve never regretted, but I need some time now before you come.  I hope you are patient.  I am positive, though, that I will know the precise time I am ready for you.  I imagine I will start to feel empty, incomplete and I will start to need you.  I imagine it will be a surprise that will come suddenly and then consume me.

Right now I am at a very interesting phase in my life as I straddle childhood and adulthood.  At church, when parents complain about their teenagers I can raise my hand and say, “As someone who was a teenager a few short years ago, here are some suggestions.”  And yet, as a young woman I understand my mother more and more every day.  More than anything, I always knew she wasn’t perfect.  I almost never had any hesitation pointing out and dwelling on her shortcomings as I was growing up, even though for the most part I was unwilling to change or even acknowledge my own.  But now I realize what a blessing she is.  I understand, at least a little, how she took all her experience, wisdom, many successes and many failures and did the best she could.  And, what a marvelous job she did.   Not because I turned out perfect, never made a poor decision (or because I made good decisions), or because she didn’t drive me crazy in moments we really didn’t get alone.

I measure my mother’s greatness in the lengths she has always gone to understand me, build me up, teach me almost everything I know about life, and set an example.  Every single day of my life, I have felt her incredible love.  She is one of the few people in this world who truly understands me, and I her.  We have a very special relationship that over the past few years, through many tears and laughs, fights and long talks, has grown into one of my most valued friendships.

While growing up, you will probably measure my value as a mom by whether or not I let you have cookies before dinner, stay out past your curfew “just this once” again, buy you all the crap you simply can’t live without, and treat you like an adult, even though quite frankly, you’re not.  And, good.  That’s what childhood is for.  I hope to often do all those things, since sometimes life is so freaking hard and the rules need to relax a bit so you can just be a kid and have the time of your life.

One day, though, I hope I will have earned a respect and revere from you that I feel for my mother.

Among many of his wonderful traits, I hope you inherit your dad’s incredible ability to forgive.  Perhaps this ability was not always so strong but has developed from having to exercise it daily with me.  I drive your dad crazy.  He doesn’t really admit it, but I know it’s true. I am forgetful, rash, dramatic, messy, stubborn, and downright frustrating sometimes.  And in the very short almost three years I’ve known him, I can count a number of times I’ve genuinely hurt him.  Yet each day he gives me a fresh start and somehow loves me more than he did the day before.

Please forgive me for the time I yell at you for having three shirts on the floor.  Please forgive me for how I overreact when you get a B- on a math test.  Please forgive me for embarrassing you in front of your friends (which will happen often, my gosh – I am such an embarrassing person!).  Please forgive me for insisting on rules you think are stupid because I think they will be best for you.  Please forgive me for all the times you catch your dad and I making out or pinching each other’s bums (we are just trying to keep our marriage alive; you being totally grossed out is an unavoidable consequence).  Please forgive me for what seems like constantly telling you what you can and can’t do, say, wear, and more.  Please forgive me for making you read this long novel of a letter, and probably many more.  Please forgive me for missing your big game.

More importantly though, please forgive me for the times I seem to have forgotten what it was like to be a kid.  Please forgive me for the times I don’t understand you, especially for the times I really don’t try to.  Please forgive me for probably the most frustrating thing a parent can do – expect you to be just like me.  Please forgive me for making you feel you aren’t good enough.  Please forgive me for the times I am too harsh.  Please forgive me for the first time you see your dad and I fight and are sure we’re getting divorced.  Please forgive me if there are times you don’t see us show each other affection and you have to wonder if we still love each other.  Please forgive me on days I am so overwhelmed I can’t face the day.  Please forgive me if sometimes I don’t give you the attention you need.  Please forgive me if there are days when instead of remembering how lucky I am Heavenly Father gave you to me, I seem like I want to send you right back.  Please forgive me for not getting it right all the time.  Please forgive me for wanting you to be little forever and have a hard time letting you grow up. 

One day while your dad and I were engaged, your grandma and I got in a big fight.  We were both overwhelmed with wedding plans, on top of the normal stresses of life.  She was frustrated that I wasn’t helping more and I was frustrated that she was trying to tackle so much in a short amount of time.  On this particular day she was painting the front living room with this stuff called venetian plaster.  You have to scoop a bunch out and scrape and spread it onto the wall with a spackling tool and then push hard on the tool and rub the plaster over and over to buff it and make it shine.  It was exhausting work.  And to me, it seemed pointless.  Painting would be so much easier – why did my mom want to do something so hard and time consuming?  Sure it looked totally awesome, but holy cow!

She had been asking me to help her, and I had been blowing her off all summer.  So one day, we got in a big fight about it.  She was mad, I was mad, and we exchanged a lot of angry words.  Then, she said something to me I’ll never forget.

“Cozette, I’m sorry.  I guess there comes a time when I realize with each child that I would do anything for you because I love you so much.  I would drop everything and do whatever I could to help you and make your life easier, and I have.  But that’s because I love you more than you will ever love me.”

That threw me for a loop.

“And that’s how it works.  If I didn’t love you more than you love me, I couldn't be your mother.  I couldn’t do what it takes.  And if you loved me as much as I love you, you would never get married and move on with your life and leave.  Sometimes I get so sad because you’re leaving and I’m losing you.  But that’s how it has to work.  Sometimes I get hurt because you don’t do for me what I do for you, but that’s because I love you more than you could ever love me, and that’s how it has to work.”

Gee, did I feel guilty.  I felt like I should do more, be more, like I should be able to love her as much as she loved me.  I didn’t understand her fully at the time.  But now as I am trying to compensate for the disparity between my mother and I, at the same time I already love you so much.  You, the unborn child with a blurry face in my imagination, the mere jumble of possibilities.  This Mother’s Day is the first where I truly think of you and feel a profound love for you.  Granted, it is a small vague love at this point, one full of hopes for the future.  But when I contemplate you – your name, your hair color, your strengths, your brilliance – I already feel so blessed and I haven’t even met you.

While your dad and I were in the temple to be sealed, I paid extra attention to my mom.  I had told her to cry all she wanted and to not dare feel embarrassed.  Before we got in the sealing room, I told one of the temple worker sisters my mom would need a lot of tissues.  She said she would bring a handful, and I said, “No, my mom needs her own box!”  So I sat between your dad and your grandma.  I looked in the mirrors and saw both of them and saw my past and future all in one view.  I held both their hands.  While we were being sealed, our sealer told us our greatest calling in life would be to have children.  And I looked to my mom and dad and thought, “How will I ever measure up?”  In that moment, the thought of you terrified me.  I worried I would be too paralyzed with fear to take the plunge into parenthood.  My eyes met hers.  Suddenly, a warm calm flooded over me.  I looked at my mom, and I knew I could be a good mother because one raised me.  I thought of the part of my patriarchal blessing that says, “Look into the life of your mother and emulate the beautiful qualities she possesses in your life.  Let her be your best friend. Stay close to her.  Build a good relationship with her.  She will be there to guide you.”  In that moment, the Holy Ghost testified to me that I have what it takes, that I could be a good mother, and that when I was ready I could take that plunge.  As I looked at my mom’s beautiful tears, I felt empowered.  And I prayed that I could feel that incredible feeling again someday.

Today is that day.

My patriarchal blessing also says, “You will do no greater work here in this life than the work you will do In your own family in preparing your family to be an eternal family.  I bless you with the ability to be a kind and tender and understanding companion and a very powerful mother in Zion.” 

I promise I will do as much as I can to make that true.  I promise I have a testimony and I will continue to build it always so it will be strong enough to help you build yours.  I promise to be a good example to you.  I promise I will work every day to love your dad and make our marriage a happy one.  I promise to be fun and not get so caught up in the rules that I forget to let you be a kid.  I promise to not get so caught up in the fact that you’re a kid that I don’t let you grow up.  I promise to somehow balance protecting you and letting your make your own choices.  I promise to support you in every way I can.  I promise to teach you as much as I can and as much as you’re willing to learn.

I will not always do these things perfectly, or even well.  Please be patient with me.  Please remind me, gently, of these promises. 

There is one promise I can make to you, though, that I can fulfill perfectly:  I will always, always love you, more than you can imagine, with a fierce and watchful and powerful love, and you will never have to doubt it.

This is the only way I can ever repay my mother all she had given me.  And I will. 

Love,

Your Mother