Sometimes we have events or days or periods in our lives when we just know it’s a demarcation or a declaration that says, “life is different now.” This year, Mother’s Day with its we’re-only-doing-an-overdue-project-around-the-house-instead-of-celebrating-and-that’s-okay theme, ended up being one of my most (maybe THE most) special of all Mother’s Day.
My daughter is creative and skilled at gift giving and occasion planning. She also knows her way around the kitchen and regularly whips up healthy and delicious vegan fare. So tired of clutter, I enjoy quality together time and little adventures over material gifts. That sums up our definition of celebrations around here, with a small and meaningful gift thrown in for good measure. This year the month of May is overstretched with activities, birthdays, Mother’s Day, end of year events, exams, end of year trips, house guests, and graduation. The added challenge is we were both very sick only a week before with the Flu. Thankfully we are feeling well enough now. At the same time we used up tightly scheduled days by solely being sick and recovering. Tasks have piled up around here. We would rather take care of business than take the time and energy to celebrate. Honestly. We are each so grateful to be feeling well that being able to do the tasks at hand is appreciated for the blessing it truly is. When I saw how consuming, demanding, and draining, being sick and healing was going to be, I accepted then and there, Mother’s Day would be a Busman’s Holiday around here.
There’s also Gone Daughter and Gone Dad. They take up time and energy that also needs to be factored in. They have a tendency to show up at most life-cycle events. Sometimes we invite them and make them headliners. Sometimes they simply show up by dropping in when the feeling hits them and then they hit us with the feelings. Sometimes they may only phone in, so to speak, and say a quick hi and catch you later.
Gone Daughter surprised me with a drop-in during the days leading up to Mother’s Day. She came for a completely different reason. Once I realized why she came by, I embraced her and she kept me company a short while as I wept.
Gone Dad came during the weekend, he came to see me instead of seeing his daughter. I was the only one surprised by his visit. He showed up late, which had made me think he would come to see me another time. Yet, there he was, right in the middle of what we were doing. We received him together and he left once he saw we were doing alright.
So Mother’s Day came in low key, on purpose. We stayed busy and happy and highly gratified at the completion of our project. I mean, sit-around-and-bask-in-the-glory gratified! We drank up the nectar of our accomplishments and it was delicious!
My daughter posted a lovely Mother’s Day tribute to me on Facebook. I cried all the way through as I read it. There was a place where she called me her best friend. She was unaware I had been wondering about that. In my mind, I thought, she’s like a best friend to me. I had been taught mothers are mothers and best friends are best friends. At the same time, I see often where mother daughter duos will say that about themselves.
Have we reached this point?
Later in the afternoon we decided to take a walk at the Arboretum. The dogwoods and lilacs had been in full bloom the other day, had they survived the recent rains? I wanted to share them with my daughter.
She was feeling spent, so we meandered our way through what I call my easy does it path, which by the way is the path most full of flowers and blossoms. A delight to our visual senses as we walked and talked along our way.
Without thought or plan we began what would turn out to be a fun mother-daughter photography outing.
After weaving around a wooded area, we came out by the meadow that sits between it, and the next wooded area. There’s a little brook that has a patch of wild mustard at its mouth. I showed her the picture I had taken a few days ago. She liked it, and immediately wanted to do a mimic. She’s taking a photography appreciation course and one of her recent assignments was to do mimics. She had enlisted my help as a hand model with a couple of them. Mimicking photos is something I often like to do with old personal photos. The point being photo mimics are familiar to us.
Next we came to the dogwood and crabapple trees. Thankfully, they were still in bloom. She took some shots of her own. Secretly I captured her in pictures as she does what she loves doing. It made me feel warm inside as I thought back of taking the picture a few days ago juxtaposed against taking the picture now of her taking pictures of the same trees. When she rejoined me on the road, I thanked her again for her lovely Facebook post and told her how much her words meant to me.
On the same piece of land by the trees is a bench that looks out over the meadow. She liked what she saw and lined up a good shot. In my mind’s eye, I saw her sitting there and she humored me by letting me line her up in life and pose her the way I saw her in my mind.
Across the lane from the bench are a few lilac bushes. They survived the rains and still looked lovely and still gave off their perfumed aroma. I’ve had lilac bushes at a couple of my homes and loved the memory of a fresh cut bouquet on the dining room table filling the room with their fragrance. I showed her a picture I had taken last week. The flowers were a bit more robust than today. The colors were more vibrant.
We left the meadow and followed the road up the hill to the gardens by the mansion. As we climb and feel the pull on our leg muscles, she starts to explain how it now feels like I am her best friend. It’s the theme of many little conversations that thread in and out throughout this day. I tell her I feel the same way.
I look at her. She’s a full-fledged woman now. I love Adult Daughter. I have stopped being Mother of Adolescent Daughter, just as I once stopped being Mother of Little Girl Daughter and Mother of Baby Girl Daughter.
Being Mother of Adult Daughter has its perks. We mothers are relieved of our caregiver mother responsibilities. When all works out, they take care of themselves. Sadly, some will never grow up and we are frozen in caregiver mode. When we see they have grown up and can do as well as we did or even better than we did for them, there’s comfort in that. A bask in the accomplishment, job well done feeling.
There’s a void too. For the unfortunate, the void becomes an awkward grown apart status. It’s filled with stuff and nonsense that steals away what could have been many meaningful shared stories. For the fortunate, it is filled with the relationship that has morphed into best friend status.
Just like that, the mother-daughter intense relationship has transformed into a safe and comfortable feeling of being there for one another. It is expressed in a non-judgemental and most loving way.
I look at her and realize, I am the mother of an adult daughter. It’s been a few years in the making. I was so used to my caregiver mother role, I was blind to the changes in her and in us.
My daughter though has forged ahead; experiencing, accepting, and claiming, her womanhood. Part of me knew of course. I had said it aloud several times as I validated and affirmed her. I had recognized it in her. What I was slow to see, or internalize fully was how we were changing. I was slow to accept my new status. I was hesitant to change. Had I been apprehensive of the void and what would fill it?
I see my Adult Daughter.
I remember my Little Girl Daughter.
I see her running up ahead of me. She turns her head around to look back at me.
“Do you see me, Mama?” She wants validation.
She seeks reassurance, “Are you still there?”
She invites me, “Are you coming, Mama?”
She gets to a spot where she wants to stop. She waits for me and I get there.
We walk together for a while.
Repeat.
This is life.
This is love.
This is us.
When we get to the top of the hill, we see the gazebo. In my mind’s eye I could see the framing of a shot and my daughter accommodated my request.
We made our way around to the flower beds.
Another bench shot. I understand. I like how she lines up her shot. There’s something being said by an empty bench. There are stories of sitting there, of private conversations held in our heads as we sit alone in contemplation. There are memories of sharing time on the bench. There’s an invitation. Stop, come here, sit down.
We accepted the invitation and sat and talked. She edited pictures. We looked at our camera rolls. Today’s. Past shots. We remembered together. We fantasized together. We savored now together. The damp and coldness told us it was time to head home.
There was a longing to delay leaving.
It was what is called in photography, the golden hour; the best lighting of the day.
I love how she captured the golden light reflecting off the stately historic home.
I found the golden light in the treetops.
There again too, I see empty seats with their invitations to the two of us.
We accept, we will be back.
We will sunbathe. We will bring picnics.
We will reflect. We will plan. We will simply enjoy the now.
We will listen to and we will counsel one another. All the while protecting what we have and loving the other.
Mother and daughter.
Best friends.
Happy Mother’s Day, 2022.
(The End.)
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