Happy Birthday Llara

I promised my daughter I’d make no comments about writhing in pain so many years ago today. She’d only reply, “Mother, I don’t do guilt trips.” I'm glad she doesn't.

When I brought her into the world, I had no idea of the adventures we’d go through. 

I hadn’t heard the comment before she was born that “having a child is like watching your heart walk outside your body.” 

It is true--so very, very true.

When I held that eight pounds of humanity in my arms for the first time, I felt totally incompetent to bring her to adulthood. I did promise I’d follow the Kahil Gibran method (see at the end). 

I think I succeeded more than I failed or at least did not repeat the over protective not letting go that my mother foisted on me. I made mistakes, many, but they were better mistakes than I was raised with.

I did not know at the time she was born, I would not be raising her in a traditional family, which I was denied and I wanted desperately for my child. As a single mother I was lucky that many others helped. Sometimes my daughter felt overwhelmed by the “committee”, but their advice made her life easier in ways she will probably never understand.

We had scary times: late night runs to the hospital, days of IV feedings. We had fun times, wrestling, EMC (early morning cuddles), ice cream runs, picnics on the rug, toasting marshmallows in a candle when the electricity was off. There were serious talks sitting on the floor in the hallway of our Riverway condo.

Like all families we have our traditional stories like the time she stepped in the pizza brought back from a takeout and after we had to go through pockets and cushions to find the change to pay for it—at that time an accompanying bottle of Coke was out of our price range. We ate around her footprint.

Sometimes she was angry at me and vice versa, but they were few and far between. I only feel we had three bad years of her total years on this planet -- when she was 5, 13 and 35. The 35 was my fault (she loves hearing that and said after I admitted my mistakes, “It was a stage I hoped you’d grow out of.”)

There were more times that I can count when I was so proud of her that I could barely contain the feeling. She was often braver than I was. Her words of wisdom helped me when my father died and when I left the US terrified of my future.

There were far fewer times I didn’t understand what she was doing or why, but I always had the confidence in her no matter what she would eventually find the way that was best for her.

She is very much her own person: kind, loving, funny, stubborn (or determined), generous, loyal. Tell her a secret and it will never, never be repeated (I’ve tried more than once to pry information out of her because I’m nosy to no success. I get more information from a rug.).

I am guilty not just of loving my daughter – I like her. To quote Bob Franke, “It’s not the thing I did best, but she’s the best thing I did.”

So to the daughter that was better than the best fantasy I could have imagined of being a mother...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LLARA

On Children

Kahlil Gibran

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 give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

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.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

for even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.