Mother's Day

I thought about my birthmother on mothers day. I really did. I even picked up my old photo album and flipped through the pages. On those pages there are plenty of numbers, spanning back about 6 or 7 years. I would keep her numbers in my photo album, never in my address book- afraid someone would open it and see. There are a lot of numbers, all with different area codes. She never kept numbers for long. She never kept residences for long. She rolled about like a tumbleweed- forever moving, forever elusive.


I though about her all throughout the day. As I delicately wrapped the gifts I had purchased for my own mother-  an eclectic middle eastern style necklace, some boxes of 85% cocoa chocolate, and other various knickknacks I had collected over the past month. I thought about her when I baked the mothers day cake, when I trimmed off the edges to make the cake into the shape of a heart, when I iced it with nutella.


I try to imagine what it would have been like to call her, to speak to her. I can hardly remember her voice now, I can’t even tell you what she sounds like. Would she have been  high, or drunk? Would she have been happy to hear from me, or angry like last time?


I know my other siblings don’t think about her.
“She was never a mother to us,” said one, even though she was not placed . “She’s not MY mother. She dug her own hole, now she lies in it. Everything bad in her life she created herself.”


And it is, isn’t it? I make a lot of excuses for my birthmother. At the end of the day, she’s just like the rest of us. She lived the life she chose- free of obligation and care. She lived the way she wanted but she paid a terrible price. And so did her children. Every one of us.


We’re getting together now…slowly. 3 out of 9 are over the legal age. In a few months the 4th will join us, and then the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th. By 2024 the last of her children will have turned 18. I wonder if they will try and find me, or one of the other siblings. I wonder what I can say to them to ease their way, to soothe their hurt. How can I explain our mother to them- in all of her radiant, yet disastrous beauty? Love and its weakness. How can I tell  them that she loved us but didn’t protect us, mothered but didn’t parent, tried but didn’t succeed, fought but never won? Love and its failure.


I thought about her on Mother’s day. And maybe I shouldn’t have. But either way, wherever she is- I hope she felt it. So here’s a quiet happy mothers day- to the mother who gave me every day of my life.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.