GENTLE MOTHER (poem)

Mom and Dad
Thanks for making my childhood
so much better than either of yours!

THEN:

I find it rather appropriate that one of the poems I published this year was inspired by my dad and one by my mother, and both by my struggle to become comfortable in the female skin they gave me. My relationship with my father has always been smooth and strong. He would die for me. I would die for him. We both were aware of both of those facts. That relationship can be likened to a rock. With Mom things were not so simple. She suffered from the after effects of horrific child abuse. Both her parents were alcoholics and one of them was a sex abuser. My mother, when I was a child, a teen, and a young adult, seemed an enigma to me. I could not understand her or feel certain of her love no matter how hard I tried. And believe me I tried! I remember having a dream that she was a witch and was trying to kill me. I was three years old. My relationship with Mom was something more akin to a storm, beautiful, powerful, and both frightening and something you can learn to be comfortable with. It was only in the last dozen years or so that it has tapered into the gentle rain that often follows a storm. The rain that lulls us into loving it. I've come to appreciate how very much better my childhood was than hers. I ate every day, my parents were not out of their mind with booze and allowing every sot in the neighborhood to bed down in the same home with their little daughters. And she picked my dad... I don't have to tell you how much better my dad was than hers! I bet you can imagine. She's told me all my life that she very deliberately chose a good father for me, that she very deliberately made my childhood safer than hers was. And it was. So, when it came to mapping out her children's future, my mother tapped into a strength and a wisdom that I didn't respect or even see. She created for me a life that was infinitely easier and safer than the one she had struggled through. In fact, my life was much safer and better than Dad's had been too. And looking back I can see and feel her love, the love that I missed all those years. How did I not see it then? I have always know that I was madly protective of her, that I would face a firing squad to save her, but I thought that adoration could only be explained through genetics. I concluded that children were doomed to love their mother even if that love is not returned. And maybe that is true as well. I thought that my affection for her was completely one sided and hence, a little unhealthy. It is not. I now realize that my mother would kill or die for me, just as I would her. And furthermore, that she is AMAZING! She is the bravest, truest, kindest, wisest and most beautiful woman I have ever known. I'm just so sorry it took me over 30 years to figure that out. I pray I can some day be half the woman she is today.

There was some correlation between learning to love my mom and learning to love being born a female. Both evolved at the same pace. One day,when the heavy chip of being a girl was resting on my shoulder, I was pondering how God and Jesus are men, and thinking about how inferior the Bible always left me feeling because almost all of the key players were men. I used to complain of this to my mom who would point out that Mary, the one given the supreme joy of being the mother of Christ, was a woman. I would look at Momma in disbelief and say something like, "Yeah, 'cause He should have made JOSEPH carry the baby in his womb." 

Mother would reply with, "Well, he certainly could have if he wanted to!"

At that time, I had not experienced the "supreme joy" of being anyone's mother, and I could not really relate to what my mother was saying. I remained unconvinced that women were cherished by God just because He let them carry the children. I thought he was kind of restricted by His own design on that one. But after carrying and giving birth to two sons and watching my boys grow, inside of me and outside of me, after losing a third son or first daughter from my womb, I know that being a mother is the greatest miracle I have witnessed, in a lifetime filled with miracles. It is the greatest gift I was ever given. Motherhood saved and shaped my life in miraculous ways, again and again. I tell my sons that they saved my life over and over, and I mean it very literally. Motherhood saved my life repeatedly. Fatherhood is great, I am sure. But if reincarnation exists and we are allowed any say over our future lives, I know I will come back in the female form much more often than the male form. I am sure there are a few lessons you can learn only in the male form, a few experiences that females don't have. But I am now convinced that there is nothing like motherhood. I can imagine nothing except, perhaps God's love, that can compare to the joy of feeling your child stir safely inside you. I would kill or die for my parents, my sisters, my spouse. But if any of them were drowning at the same time as my sons they can say their prayers and hang it up. If I only had the time to rescue one of them, we'd likely bury my parent, my sister, or my spouse very shortly. And of them all, I think my mother would understand that reasoning best of all. When you give birth to children, or become a mother by adopting with your whole heart, then the best of you and the entire world is forever walking around in that other person. I am a peace loving hippie to my core. I step over ants on the sidewalk and rescue spiders from people that want to squash them. But it was always with a deep, satisfied glee that I swatted any mosquito trying to bite one of my children! And I don't think I would lose a night's sleep over it if I ever had to treat some human killer in a like manner. I'd squash him or her and then go, "YES!" I wouldn't feel a bit of guilt over it because that is the way God/Nature designed me. The human race is perpetuated because the older family members will usually die for the younger ones. I wouldn't kill a human for biting my sons... probably... but they wouldn't get by with much more. So, word to the wise: They are grown-assed men, but don't mess with my boys, unless you want to mess with me. It's a sure fire way to turn this hippy into a redneck. You've heard about hell and scorned women? Well, I've been a scorned woman and it did incite some fury, that's true. But in fact, Hell hath no fury like a mother running defense.

And on that reflective-heavy-chip-on-shoulder day, as I was studying maleness and femaleness, the nature of motherhood, and of God. I concluded that the closest I had ever come to loving like God does is probably in motherhood. If God is a spirit and there is no marriage in Heaven, maybe sexes don't exist there. Maybe God isn't male or female but something much better than either. That might make God both Father and Mother. And that thought led to, "Maybe it would be cool to look at the maternal side of God for a change." So, I sat down and merged my views of God, and my mother, and motherhood itself in the poem below.


             Gentle Mother

Gentle Mother, wise and true,
Doth not the soft winds blow for you?
Doth not the cradle rock by will,
When day is done and night is still?
If not, dear mother, they truly ought,
Be in your web of pleasing caught,
And there like freedom in a cage,
All your battles fiercely wage.
For your soft hands hold all our dreams,
And in your eyes such passion gleams,
And all your thoughts rest wild and strong,
On how to teach us right from wrong.
Still we, your children, look away,
And with vile demons, wrongly play,
And yet you love us anyway,
So, that is why my heart must say...
Gentle Mother, wise and true,
May all the soft winds blow for you.
May every cradle rock at will,
When day is done and night is still.