I talked with my son just briefly yesterday. I had been trying to get in touch with him for a little while, just checking in, and he called me back just moments before I had to go into a class. He had many stories to share and was abuzz with excitement. He had finished a quarter and was hanging out with friends in Laguna Beach. He was getting a car and has a great summer job lined up. And best news, he might even be home for a week and I would get to see him.
Then this morning I got a call from my daughter. She shared that her physical, required for her summer job, had come back reporting she was in excellent health. The best of which was that her heart was strong and healthy. The news made me well up. Just yesterday I had received an email from the treatment center she had gone to last summer for her eating disorder. Life has moved on. She is recovering, we are all recovering.
I was struck by the settledness I feel. Momentary as it is, or as my mind allows it come. I had a talk with my father a few days ago. It is the talk we have often. He worries about my lack of ambition and a plan, that I have flitted from one thing to the next, never really having a career. And I remind him, painfully, that I raised children. That was my job…I chose to be a mother above all else. And then he back pedals, trying to make sense of my life if only for himself. And I am left feeling less than in his eyes…misunderstood and a disappointment.
The calls from my children reminded me of some greater truths. There is nothing that is more valuable than love. I have been very fortunate to have lived a life that allowed me to be a mother. I have worked hard and loved deeply, and there is nothing I would change about that.
deidre noreen 