I got married May 16, 2014. This is the letter I wrote, but never sent at the time, for and about my mother on her last Mother’s Day before her little girl became a Mrs.
I know this is hard on you. Today on the phone when I squeaked out that I was getting married in five days, you sighed your agreement like it was your consent to exile. I’m growing up, and that scares you. Time does that.
It scares me, too, because I know I won’t have you forever, and someday a time will come when something will happen–a layoff, a fight, some looming threat I don’t know how to handle on my own–and I won’t be able to call you like I want to, like I always have.
People talk about how children cry for their mother when they’re scared. When I’m scared, mom, I still cry for you. And you’re always there with patience and understanding. No judgment; just love.
Remember when I was a kid and we’d argue? We’d yell at each other and then you’d send me to my room, and I would resentfully trudge upstairs, careful to stomp my feet on every step and slam the door as hard as my small arms could swing it, and you’d yell at me for that, too.
I would sit on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall, running through the list of all the injustices I imagined had befallen me, and while I was doing that my door would creak open and in you’d come. You’d sit on the edge of the bed next to me while I pretended not to notice. And then you’d put an arm around me and tell me, “You know, I love you, even when I’m mad at you.”
You taught me how to love, mom. Even as you were teaching me how to do laundry, wash dishes, cook, drive, be a good hostess, and all the life skills that I admit I sometimes neglect now that I’m a grown-up like you, you taught me how to love.
You taught me how to worry, too. And you taught me how to nurture, and how to fight. And when my soon-to-be husband and I argue, I lay with him on the bed and tell him, “I love you, even when I’m mad at you.”
It’s easy to say “I don’t know where I’d be without you.” I needed you to raise me when I was little, to teach me, to care for me.
But even as an adult, I’ve gone through so many things that might have broken me down without your support. I guess I just wanted to say thank you. I know I’ll never be able to give back as much as you’ve given me, but I hope I one day will have the opportunity to pass it forward.
Mom, I promise you’re not exiled. I know you don’t want to hear it, but in a couple years or so I’m going to have a child of my own. I know it’s still a way off, but I think about that a lot. I think about what kind of person I am, and what you and dad did to help me become that person. I always come to the same conclusion: I hope I can be everything for my own kids that you have been for me.
And I will need you for every step along the way.
