Mothers and daughters

A friend once said that the relationship between mothers and daughters are destined for complications.  She’s got two daughters.  My life has been built on the premise that my mother was always a part of it.  She told me that when I was young, I would stand by the gate of the house where we lived in Bangladesh between 3 or 4 o’clock and wait for her.  She said if she was late I would pace near the gate until she got home.  Up until she retired 3 years ago, I would grow anxious if she wasn’t home by 4 o’clock.  This has always been my norm.  She always came back at the same time and if she didn’t I’d grow restless and anxious until I knew where she was.  

She was close to her mother.  She confided in her mother and listed to everything her mother said.  Since her mother was my grandmother, I don’t think my grandmother was an unreasonable person.  She’s someone I quite admired and loved.  It takes a lot of courage to leave your husband and move your children into the big city and take on the role of single mother.  Her action was culturally unacceptable and I’m sure there are hardships that came with her decision.  I don’t know what she personally thought or felt but because of the choice she made, every single of her grandchildren gained the freedom to choose how we live our lives.  We got a chance because she took a chance and made a difficult choice.  She chose to give her children a fighting chance at a better life than the one she had.

I was never oblivious to this fact about my grandmother and my mother’s past.  But I could never quite bring myself to be the kind of daughter to my mother that she was to her mother.  In case you didn’t know this already about me, I don’t take well to being told what to do.  Give me the facts and figures of the circumstance and just let me make up my own damn mind.  I may surprise you and do exactly what you want.  So when I hit puberty or thereabouts, I was discovering myself.  It is at this point that I completely broke away from my mom and just flat out ignored her.  God forbid she had anything useful to teach me.  

My mother’s a sly one.  I didn’t appreciate that until I became a mother and learned to use some of that slyness on my own children.  You have to be a little tricky.  You have to always be one step ahead of your children.  It’s your job to make sure they turn out to be functioning adults who makes useful contributions to society.  Somehow, while I was busy trying very hard not to be her, I became her.  Thanks to her, despite the numerous times and faces I’ve fallen in and out of love with or had my heart broken over, it was always my choice to engage in those foolish infatuations.  Thanks to her, I was never seduced by the lies the opposite sex tells and believe me there have been more than one occasion where I’ve wanted to believe them just to see where the road would lead me.  Somehow, because of her, when I met “the one” I just knew that he was the one I was destined to love.  

When I finally moved out, I adopted two cats.  A brother and a sister.  Would you believe that the girl’s personality was exactly that of my mother’s?  She was territorial, sweet, bossy in an understated manner, and would not tolerate another female anywhere near her.  She and came to a truce of sorts.  We’ve learned to tolerate each other and staunchly stand together when she’s upset.  She sometimes affectionately lies on my foot.  

Something happened recently that made me really angry at my mother.  I thought she was insensitive and uncaring and I told her I hated her for how she hurt me to her face.  For weeks afterwards, I was so angry with her.  I hurt so much over what she did.  I silently dealt with my pain and I prayed lots.  Then one day, after much prayer, I was able to let it go.  It was a struggle that was my own.  But I think it changed something in me.  I told her that I was sorry I said that to her.  I told her that I’m sorry I got angry.  I told her that I regretted the time I lost when I could have had a better relationship with her.  She said it was ok, she had forgiven me and she knew I didn’t mean it.  She told me that she loved me.  

She also told me that when she found out she was pregnant she prayed for a daughter, a doll of her very own to play with.  I knew this.  I’ve heard this often.  Except this time, there was a ring of finality to it.  This time I saw her as more than just my mother, I saw another woman.  In that moment, she was still my mother but she was also a woman, same as me.  

Motherhood is a funny thing.  If you embrace it and the changes it brings, you suddenly discover a whole new world that was hidden from her.  All the things that make women behave stupidly towards one another suddenly disappears and you realize you belong to this secret sisterhood of shared experiences.  Without needing to you suddenly understand the joy and pain that comes with bringing life into this world.  You understand the fear and insecurities we mothers grapple with every day of our life.  When you discover this bond with the woman who gave you birth to you, it changes you both.

Somewhere in that hospital room we stopped being mother and daughter and we became two women who were connected by an unbreakable thread that was stronger than anything in the world.  I was a part of her.  I came from her.  In many ways, I find it very easy to be her.  When I came into being, her heart beat in rhythm to mine.  When I first drew breath, the arms that held me in that moment was hers.  Ever since that moment, she was my mother and I was her daughter.  When I couldn’t do for me, she cared for me.  As she slowly finds it difficult to do things for herself, it seems natural to try to do for her.  I have a feeling though, most of the time will be spent sitting by her side and writing.  

I’m content to be in my mother’s presence.  She finds comfort in my presence.  It makes me laugh when she apologizes to me for making things “uncomfortable.”  Oh mother if you only knew that every morning after my work out I walk to the showers from my locker in only my birthday suit, it’s you who would be uncomfortable.  I can imagine her shocked response.  Have I no shame?  Apparently not.  

No, mother, you’re not making me uncomfortable.  The fact that you’re heaven bound and I’m going to be left behind to miss you, that makes me uncomfortable.  The fact that I have to explain to your grandson that you’re dying, that’s uncomfortable.  The fact that I had to move back home, that’s a little uncomfortable especially since it seems like I’m going backwards than forward.  Having sex under your roof while you’re lying downstairs, speedily heading towards death, that’s going to be uncomfortable.  But you don’t make me uncomfortable.  Nothing about you makes me uncomfortable.  I cherished your presence even when I forgot that’s what I was doing.  I had the luxury to rebel because I was always assured of your love and presence in my life.