It is odd to me how this Mother’s Day feels… as if this was the most important one to date but also as if none had ever passed before it… As many of you know, 6 months after getting laid off from my job in Chicago, I moved back home with my parents in “Merryland.” In spite of many unpleasant conversations regarding my lack of job (& more importantly, lack of husband) “situation,” those 7 months at home were the best time of my life… not only did the very best thing to ever happen to me happen (my nephew was born & I got to be there for his precious early months), but I became so much closer and as a result, even more, attached than I already was to my parents. Therefore, now that I’ve moved back to Chicago and am once again away from them, I am finding myself deep in thought on this Mother’s Day.
I could write a whole book on my relationship with my Mom, but to say it as briefly as I am capable of saying it, as with almost every mother-daughter relationship, it has been a journey of deep and unconditional love with moments of intense frustration (more like “Ahhh! You make me crazy!!!”). Although my Mom is my friend now, for most of my life, she wasn’t, and I am personally so grateful for that. She was only my Mom and she made it perfectly clear that other people were there to be my friends, but that her only purpose in life was to be my mother which meant being my well-wisher, guardian, protector, advisor, disciplinarian, teacher (specifically, math instructor – she must have made me do a thousand “times tables”) & the one person – unlike any friend, relative or even my one day husband – who would do absolutely ANYTHING for me.
I hate to say this, but growing up, my mom was definitely not my favourite (isn’t it so wrong that we even have favourites, but we do, right? There is always a favourite child, a favourite parent, a favourite nephew/niece/aunt & so on…). I was my Dad’s favourite and a “Daddy’s girl” in every sense of the term. My Dad was my favourite because he was a kid at heart, tons of fun and so easy to work over and since my major purpose in life has always been to have as much fun (back in the day “play”) as possible, I knew that I could get him to be in favour of whatever it was that I was trying to make happen. That is until my Mom came along and iron-fisted those plans into oblivion and then sent me to my room to do another set of times tables.
The good thing about my quest for fun was that my Mom could ignore that huge part of my personality, because I was always in line with all the other “good (& be admired)” Indian kids by all standards. In high school, I was on the honour roll, was a family friend Uncle & Auntie favorite, danced at my Mom’s request for any function or family friend party, like my brother who had been president of one club in high school, I was president of another, I did well on my SATs & eventually I got into the #2 combined BS/MS physical therapy program in the country. Then when I was in undergrad at Boston University, my Mom was again proud… I was on the Dean’s list, was President of my class for 4 years, in some kind of leadership role of India Club, & got tons of praise for the dances that I performed… all good material to talk to family friends about when the typical “What is Smita up to”? the question would come up.
Then I turned 21 and everything changed… After fainting 3 times during the first semester of my senior year/Masters in PT program (I couldn’t stomach small things like watching a video of knee surgery or even just hearing the story of a man breaking his femur into two pieces), I realized that physical therapy was not for me. My parents – especially my Mom – insisted that I complete my Masters for the sake of having it and as I imagined bearing through another year and a half of what I felt was torture, I told them that I couldn’t. Or more like I wouldn’t, and for the first time, I so blatantly disobeyed and disappointed my parents.
After graduation, I moved home to Maryland, and from June of 2001 to almost 10 years later, my relationship with my Mom has gone through so many phases… I was going to say “love & hate” as one of them, but I never hated my mom nor did she ever hate me. I believe that no matter what kind of relationship you have with your parents, “hate” on any side of it, is just not possible. Although the first few years living at home were definitely filled with lots of angst for both of us, as much as I was frustrated by what I thought was my Mom “not getting me” and in spite of her never-ending life lessons, my Mom slowly became my “new favourite.”
I’ve never been the type to respond well to unsolicited advice, but irrespective of how much I preferred not to hear it, I knew that everything she said and did came from a place of wanting the absolute best for me. Over that decade, I developed a deep sense of gratitude for all the sacrifices my Mom had made and a tremendous respect for her being the voice of reason in our family – the only reason (no offence Daddy) that the Moon family made it, b/c although my Dad was so much fun, you can’t be a child at heart and make a grown-up family work. Although I had heard all of her stories before about coming to the country with $8 in their pockets, walking 2 miles every day in the snow to drop off food to my Dad while he was completing his PhD, taking care of my brother & me while also doing all kinds of random work for people to earn income on the side, I heard them from a completely different perspective.
Although my Dad certainly contributed, I realized that I owed whatever I was (IMO, a pretty darned okay person but likely in her opinion, still much to be improved) and especially everything that my brother was (the best human being I knew) to my Mom. Those who know me, know that I always say that the biggest blessing in my life is my brother and although I could tell you all the reasons why in a separate post (& to his dismay, I’m sure I will one day), in the 3 years before I arrived, it was my Mom who raised him to be who he always has been and still is and for that I am forever grateful.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t until my nephew was born last August that I really got it. Until then, when I would push back at the countless things that my Mom would give me her opinions and advice on, she would say to me “you’ll understand one day when you’re a Mom,” and although I realize that I’m just his Bhua (aunt), my nephew’s arrival into the world changed my perspective on pretty much everything…
When I held Baby Moon for the first time, I wept for joy and when he wrapped his tiny hand around my pinky within 24 hours of his arrival, my heart swelled with a love I had never felt before… The day he came home, I excitedly volunteered to change his diaper (my first ever), I laughed the first time he peed on me and calmly changed into my back-up clothes when he yacked on me on my birthday… and in every moment before and after, I realized that loving him was my first experience of true unconditional love. I would do anything for him and nothing made me happier than seeing a smile on his face, and although this isn’t the first time I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure if I’ve ever said it to my Mom, so on this Mother’s Day, I am writing a letter to my mother…
“Dear Mom, You were right (I know you’ve lived to hear those words so I’ll say them again – in bold… italicized). You were right that I won’t understand until I am a mom one day, but I do understand more than I ever have because what I feel for Baby Moon is unlike anything I have ever felt before, and it wasn’t until his arrival that I became capable of imagining what it must be like to bring a life into this world… Baby Moon is not my child, but he is the closest thing to it for now, and it is because of him that I realized that having a child must be like watching your own heart beat outside your body… I have flashed forward to when he becomes a teenager and imagine him staying with me for the weekend… I would want him home by 10 pm, would ask for the names of who he will be with and the phone #s of their parents, and even when he turns 30, if he was ever in my care, not being able to sleep until I know that he is back home safely. It is true what they say about turning into your parents, because I would be exactly like how you were and still are.
Although I have always known it at some level, I have a new and profound awareness of how much my well-being and happiness means everything to you, and although I know you won’t believe it until I’m married, own a house, have 2 kids, & am “secure,” I want to assure you that I AM happy, and that I am happy NOW. I know that it will be a wish made in vain, because I know that this isn’t possible for you – perhaps for any desi Mom – but I hope you know that although my life’s check mark criteria aren’t perfectly working out right now the way you would have wished for me, that by every standard that actually matters you have done an amazing job as a mother.
I say this humbly, but whenever you get worried about me and my life as it compares to “desi standards” (<– that is not me poking fun at you for having them because I know that if I were a mom to a daughter, I’d have all the same concerns as you), please read this and remember that at the end of the day, more than what we do or do not have or do or not accomplish, it is who the Bro and I are as human beings that will be the legacy you will leave as a mother. & although I know that I still leave much to be desired, I can say that I am at least a decent human being and that your greatest legacy will always be the Bro, for he is a truly exceptional one.
Thank you for raising him to be the best brother a sister could ever ask for and thank you for all that you are and all that you do. & lastly, sorry – sorry that although we always have our “I love you’s” that it took a day that Hallmark created for me to say all of this.
With all my love and gratitude,
Your Baby Moon”
A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother’s love endures through all. ~ Washington Irving
Grown do not mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart, it do not mean a thing. ~ Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~ Honoré de Balzac
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