Mom

Why did we part ways?

I am here. You are here.

Why do we divide?

There was Him. There was Robert.

Did we not live him?

Did you and I not coil around him like dunes eat water?

Did we not both beg of him for Enya and oysters?

Why did he leave?

Did we exhaust him so?

I would never believe that of him.

As we can never lay him down. I wonder if he always knew.

He stays silent in our dreams. Never speaking.

I wonder.

Is he binding us?

Did he always know?

If he had stayed would this be so?

Our life. Together.

Why does he not speak in our dreams?

You cannot return him to me. I cannot return him to you.

MOM?

Stay with me?

If we stick together we have a better chance.

You and me.

Stay with me. If you lose me then I lose you and we are both desert lost.

Stay with me. I will stay with you.

Maybe then he will talk to us again.

Take my hand and we will both go back to the desert. You and me. US. We will live in the dunes and dream of cats and wild things. Come with me. We are all that is left. We are desert bound.

Are you a good parent? Am I?

Today as I was walking through the store with my family. A woman, who was an employee approached me.

She had witnessed me, point blank , tell my son after a quick tantrum; ” You will not raise your voice to me, I am your mother.” This was all that I said and my son responded with an apology.

The female employee said with a smile;

” I was just telling another girl what a good mother you are. So many mother’s let their children run wild without respect for other people.”

This, to me, is completely foreign. I have never once thought I was a good mother. I stress over details, discipline, encouragement and as most parents do; when do I get myself back? My child is a constant struggle. A very dear friend told me as of late “The nut cracker works fine, you just have a hard nut to crack”.

This woman in the store admired my approach to child rearing, if you can still call it that. I felt very good, for once about motherhood. Everyone about seems to think I am a good mother, I however disagree. I could be faster, better, smarter, stronger.

Inside of my heart I love my boy, who questions me and tells me I am wrong. He challenges me constantly and while it drives me to madness it also blooms proud in my spirit. I am rasing him as I promised I would.

My rules:

1) I will accept my child no matter what or whom he has decided to become.

2) I will love him completely regardless of any circumstance.

3) I will discipline him for any disrespect of another being, be it animal or human.

4) I will always hold him to his word.

5) I will never tell him a lie.

These are the rules I wrote in my diary long before he was born. I have kept them all. I do not think I am a good mother. He is only four and there is much more to come for him. How he sees me now as an “authority”  that will some day change into an “understanding”. I only want to ask of him what I ask of myself. I seem like a harsh mother, but perhaps the woman at the store has given me a new understanding. I was a black sheep child… who struggled against all that was handed to me. Maybe my real purpose in life is to raise this “unexpected” child. To make him my better? Maybe this is what all of us parents are meant to do?

To love and live for, even if we are judged harshly, our children.

The hardest nut of all.