A mother's life

Today is my second daughter Sarri’s birthday. She turns 46. My daughters are coming close to 50. Their mother must be so old, I smile as I tell myself. Yet I still remember getting ready to go to the hospital and shedding a few tears alone. I was aware that a delivery could complicate and result in my death and I wept out of concern for my oldest daughter, Risa, who was a little more than a year old. But I lived and we came home to our apartment in Palm Village.

I called her Barbara Rosario, named after me with Rosario added because I loved the nickname Sari, which she later spelled Sarri. She was a crybaby, very tense, very nervous, an effect, I supposed, of the automobile accident her dad and I had when I was five months pregnant with her. She also made me very tense and nervous so my milk dried up and she had to be bottle-fed. She was allergic to cow’s milk and so we searched and found alternatives.

She was my grandmother’s favorite. My grandmother had been diagnosed with lung cancer then so I decided to move in and do my best to take care of her. Among her grandchildren I was the closest to my grandmother since I had grown up with her. She chose this second baby of mine as her favorite and played with her often, making her laugh. Sarri laughed with my grandmother and cried with me, her mother.

I realize as I write this that it leaves my mother out of the picture. Maybe very early in life, my mother felt left out of the picture, which would explain a lot of things much later when she got Alzheimer’s disease.

All my daughters are beautiful in their own ways. Sarri is tall, thin and looks like a faerie. I prefer that spelling as it is more magical, mystical and mysterious, just like her. She is the lovely mother of my handsomest grandson, Julian, who is 15 and driving his mother crazy, much to his grandmother’s amusement. He has reached puberty, I have said, you must realize puberty is the start of breaking away from his parents and he is at the mercy of his hormones. Haaaay naku-u-o! Sarri exclaims. Sarri married an Englishman and lives in Hove, a suburb of Brighton, in England, very far from me.

All my children live very far from me. They are all very independent and only see me when they feel like, which is hardly ever. I realize that this is because they now have children of their own, family and other concerns and Mom is the last one on the list. I remember being that way too and I am happy that they are all independent and doing well for themselves. As their mother I know they will never forget me especially after I am dead. They have known no life without me. That is the single benefit of motherhood. Your children, when they grow old and reminisce, will always remember you with love and blame.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and say, Who would have thought that my body would become like Mommy’s in my old age! My mother was always bigger and rounder than me when I was young. Now, I am she. When my children blame me for the way I raised them — and they do once in a while — I blame my mother for the way she raised me and I’m sure my mother blames her mother for the way she raised her and my grandmother blames my great-grandmother for the way she raised her. It’s a long solid line — the sins of our mothers — and even as we discuss or think we forgive especially after they are dead. Eventually all is forgiven, there is no more bitterness or sorrow even if all that takes time.

I have always said that the most difficult thing I have ever done is mothering because I was never a long-suffering mother. I would put my foot down and try to discipline and if they drove me desperate I would tell them so. I am glad that at this time I find only pleasure in my children’s company.

But I have lots of alone time. What do you do when your children get married and no longer need you around? You make a lot of friends. You take a lot of lessons and make friends with your classmates. You go out together and have a lot of fun. You find your own life again and enjoy it as much as you can before you get sick or die because, like it or not, that’s the next big thing that will happen in your life.

Girls and old women just want to laugh and have fun. Remember that. Even if your second child is turning 46 and your eldest is 47, all we want to do is have our own lives full of friends, laughter and fun.

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