As my children grow into their shells and out of them, I see the possibilities of the people they could become. I marvel at every stage taking them one step further, taller, brighter, closer to understanding the world around them. At the freshness and joy of them. They fill my heart with an emotion so profound and raw, I cannot articulate it.
We often discuss their big thoughts at bedtime. Aged seven and ten, they state their plans for the future.
‘I want to live with you forever.’
I am enveloped in the love of it, the precious comfort of it and I hug them, wishing this innocent moment could go on forever.
‘There will always be a home for you with me,’ and inside me, ‘and you can still go on great adventures, explore the world, discover something new, dive to the ocean's depths, even fly to Mars’. They find this disturbing. ‘No Mama, please, let us just stay with you’.
‘Of course.’ I do not point out that the day I grew up, I left my mother for my grand adventure, and never returned.
I do not tell them, for fear of scaring them away from making their own choices, that one day their life’s path might take them far away from me, just as my path led me far from my mother. I do not tell them of the heartbreak I will feel, an aching gnawing fear in my soul. Part of me will always be lost without them. Instead, I tell them about my journey.
‘When I was little, I dreamed of seeing all the wonderful places I read in my books. So when I was old enough,’ I pointed to the bedtime book we were reading, Oh the Places You’ll Go, a Dr Seuss childhood favourite of mine, ‘I went exploring the big, wide world to see what I could find. You know what happened?’ Their faces are curious. ‘I climbed up pyramids in Mexico and into pyramids in Egypt, I looked into smoking volcanoes and snorkelled in Caribbean seas, I walked through cities thousands of years old and flew on countless planes.’ I made flying movements with my hands. ‘I got to soar through the sky in a glass-bottomed helicopter so I could see the ocean jewels of the Great Barrier Reef below me. The world is a magical place.’ They are unconvinced. ‘Wouldn’t you like to explore our universe one day?’
My eldest, staunch in her beliefs, replies, ‘Only if you come with us’.
I laugh. ‘I will go wherever you go, for as long as you want me to be there.’ I do not explain my worries about their future. I want them to grow free of limitations, so they can stretch their minds and fly as far as their imagination can fling them. Neither do I tell them to stay close to me, that as I get older my stomach churns at the possibility of being without them.
I think of my 89-year-old mother, whom I left when I was 24 years old, of all the selfless choices she made so I could grow into me.
Decades later, she is older, alone, her grandchildren far away. How much pain did my leaving cause her? She showed only joy, and concern for my safety. My mother kept her feelings to herself, bearing the pain and longing in solitude.
It occurs to me, then, that I did the same as my mother. She left my grandmother in Europe so she could find her place in the world. She found it in Australia, where she married and raised a family. Mum often mentioned leaving her mother behind. As a young girl, I never understood the depth of the emotion behind those remarks, until I left and had children of my own, carving a home for my new family unit in England.
As mothers, we pass on experiences and wisdom that cross the generations. There is also a shared pain. That thought makes me feel so much closer to the matriarchs before me. Will my daughter experience the same?
Motherhood has many joys and carries many responsibilities, not least our duty to help our children become who they want to be, in the best way possible. No one ever prepares you for the heartache. The silent suffering. Losing your sense of self as you give all of yourself to shape the next generation, out of love, out of duty. The amount of worry you feel every day, for their health, their future. I think about what I would have done had I truly understood the ache Mum was to feel when I followed my dreams and explored the unknown. She gave up more than I ever realised, to allow me to become who I am now.
I look at my children and hug them fiercely, ’I love you both so much.’ Yes, I will stay silent too.
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