Grace has a funny little tendency lately to try to establish her independence from me. I suppose it's just what being almost-two is all about. But if I ask Grace to do something, the answer is typically, "NO" (unless it involves eating something delicious like cake with chocolate frosting). If I push the issue and say, "YES," she'll respond "NO NO NO." But if I switch it up on her and I start to say, "NO NO NO," she, of course, will respond "YES YES YES." She's figuring out how to do things her own way...and just for the sake of doing things her own way. I'm getting used to the rebellion and resistance, actually. I'm at the point where I can anticipate her NOs, and I know that if I ask her to hand me something she's holding onto, she'll throw it before she'll be willing to walk it over to me. I actually was starting to take it personally.
Until the playground. As we played on one of those climby-structures with the slides and ladders and bridges and poles attached, I missed a step and fell, scraping my leg on the step that I missed on the way down. It hurt. She must have seen the pain in my face because she became visibly upset. Not crying tears or anything, but her voice got really whiny and delicate: "Mommy fell doooown." She came over and kneeled next to me, looking alternatively at my leg that I was gripping in pain and into my eyes. I wanted to cry...not because I was hurt, but because for possibly the first time ever, in the subtle feeling of empathy seeping in through her voice and in her eyes, I could see that Gracie loved me...that it hurt her to know that I was hurt.
It's been about a week now since I took that spill and a 3" scrape down the front of my right shin often reminds Grace of our playground mishap. Whenever she sees it the whiny delicate voice comes back replete with the pained expression on her face and she says, "Mommy fell dooooown. Mommy got a boo-boo." But now she adds, "But it's okay." She got this last part from me. I tell her I'm okay, that it doesn't hurt, and that the boo-boo is healing. I told her tonight, "Don't ever worry about Mommy. I never want you to worry about Mommy. I'm always okay." I meant that, I think, more than I've ever meant anything I've ever said to her. I never, ever want Gracie to feel the burden of worrying about her Mommy.
I think as we grow up, it's one of the most painful and unavoidable responsibilities we have, to worry about our Mommies. Watching our mothers get older renders us powerless--we can't, after all, stop time. This is only complicated by the fact that Mommies are big girls who can take care of themselves, make their own decisions, and resent any (even subtle) shift from being the caretaker to the one who is being taken care of. This means that even though we worry about them, we have no real power to take care of them and protect them in the way that they spend their lives caring for and protecting us. This is why worrying about Mommy is always a burden.
Only moments after my little talk with Grace, my phone rang and it was my Mommy. She had bad news. My dad's cousin, Rosemary, died. A beautiful, vibrant woman, only 48 years old, with two college-aged children, she succombed to cancer earlier today. Truly, Rosemary's passing is a tragedy because she still had youth on her side (just one look at her would assuage any doubt about that), she was newly re-married, and much tragedy has befallen her immediate family within the past few years. But of course, the real tragedy isn't so much Rosemary's loss of life--she is, after all, joining her mother and brother in heaven--but Sarah and Scott's loss of their mom. When I think about the way they must have worried about their mom and prayed desperately for her to live, I am wrenched with pain. The pain makes my breath shallow, makes me want to tiptoe around life for a while until my own mortality and that of my mother isn't so near or so perceptible. The worry within me swells...the worry that I, as a daughter and as a mother, will never be disabused of. I'll always worry about my mother. And I'll always worry about my daughter worrying about me.
I try to work around Grace's current state of contrariness, manipulate it when I can. If I want a kiss I'll say, "Grace, don't give me a kiss. I don't want one," and I end up with a kiss, hug, and impassioned, "I LOVE YOU!" But really, I like inependent Gracie. Her sassy-ness makes me laugh and fills me with hope that she'll be just stubborn enough and have just enough will to be resilient through life's most difficult moments. As a mom, I know there will be times (hopefully very few and far between) when I see her brought to her knees by life. That's just what life does to us sometimes. I will pick her up the best I can and help her to regain her footing. I just don't want her brought to her knees anymore out of worry for me, for my safety, or my life.
I'm pretty sure I didn't know what love was before I had a daughter. I'm pretty sure this is it.
In memory of Rosemary Marasco Giavanucci.
