I made my mother cry today. That's always a strange feeling.
We were shopping at JoAnn Fabrics and she was looking at books about home decorating and I had picked one up about baby booties. If people want to learn to knit, smart people pick small projects. Babies have small parts which will need small projects. One of my friends there asked, "Are you trying to tell us something?" We all laughed. Oh! So funny!
Later I told my mom that I was looking forward to being in my fifties so that people wouldn't ask me if I was trying to tell them something. She looked at me and said, "You know that I don't say anything. I don't want you to think that I do or don't want you to have a baby."
I said, "Mom, I don't want to have children. I'd be so afraid all the time. I'd be watching them every minute searching for signs of some problem. They'd cough and I'd flip out about cystic fibrosis. I just couldn't do it."
She said, "This is where I get emotional." Her eyes teared up. "Sometimes I put myself in the same position as you, wondering if I would have children if I were you. And I think that I probably wouldn't because of what I did to you."
She kind of folded in on herself then. I could feel her struggling with guilt that bordered on despair. I tried to explain that I wasn't talking about her or me, but she put her hand on my cheek and said, "I know. I know."
But how can she know if I didn't tell her? I did manage to force my own words in, "Mom, you didn't do anything wrong. I'm happy to be alive and I'm glad you had me and BellyRub and AngerTrain. If you hadn't had me, I promise you I wouldn't be so happy. Things are good."
She put her hand back on my cheek and sort of covered my mouth a little and said, "I'm glad you're happy." Her face looked strong when she said that, but her eyes looked like she didn't believe me.
Posted by dotty at September 15, 2004 09:35 PM