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| by Katherine Barrett |
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The following story is excerpted from A Cup of Comfort for Mothers, Stories that celebrate the women who give us everything.
The twins are two; Thomas is three and a half. And I am forty-two . . . today. We’re celebrating my birthday at my parents’ house because we’ve sold ours and set our furniture to sea. We’re en route from central Canada to South Africa, where we will live for the next three years. Carl, my husband, is overseas right now, scouting rental properties.
So the birthday party is small, just my children and parents. We’ve had my favorite dinner, baked scallops, and we’ve gorged on homemade chocolate cake. It may be small, but the party is raucous. Chocolate propels young children sugar-sky high. For an hour, Thomas, Jon, and Alex have been chasing each other around the loop of my parents’ first floor. We eventually corral them to open my presents.
Carl left behind a lovely writing journal and some restorative eye cream (truly), and my parents have promised to babysit while I buy myself some decent clothes. There’s one final present and it’s from Thomas. He and my father slipped out yesterday for a covert excursion to the Dollar Store. That’s all I know—but they’re both beaming now.
My father prefaces the unwrapping. “Thomas chose this all by himself,” he says. “Didn’t you, Thomas?”
“Yes. It’s a heart,” he blurts out.
“I didn’t help him at all,” my father emphasizes. “We walked through the aisles of the store until he found something to give to you.”
The package is soft and about the size of a dinner plate. My mother must have wrapped it so neatly. I slowly take away the paper, smiling the silly smile of someone opening gifts. It is indeed a heart. A heart that could only have come from a Dollar Store. Strands of metallic red tinsel wind in magnificent loops and bows around a thin wire frame. It shines like a halo for a rather flamboyant St. Valentine.
“I bought that for you, Mommy,” Thomas says as I squeeze him.
“It’s beautiful, sweetie. I love it.” And I do, more than any possible birthday gift.
Thomas squirms out of my arms and rallies the troops. With a final burst of cocoa-power, they’re off. I thank my parents for the celebration as they move to tidy up. Within an hour, all three kids are scrubbed and sleeping and my parents have retired to their books and bed. The house is quiet—except for my tumbling thoughts.
I imagine Thomas roaming the aisles of the Dollar Store. He has one arm outstretched, his hand lightly fanning the shelves as he passes. His eyes are steady, taking in all the gaudy trinkets on the lower two shelves. He only looks higher when he stops. I’ve watched him do this; I can picture his actions clearly. Yet, I cannot envision my three-year-old, as self-absorbed as any preschooler, bypassing trucks, glitter-glue, lollipops, and maybe even trains to choose a heart. It’s not something he wants for himself. He was, it seems, thinking of me.
How can I resist symbolism? The most obvious interpretation is love. Thomas, like a woozy teenager, has given me the heart as a token of his undying love. Many other metaphors are ripe for picking: trust, courage, patience, forgiveness. I revel in my wondrously empathic child.
And then I sober. These are late-night literary indulgences. I don’t know why Thomas chose the heart, and I was too engulfed by my own thoughts to have asked him. I do know that three-year-olds aren’t normally inclined toward empathy or metaphor. He was not sending a complex message. Maybe he liked the smoothness or shininess of the heart, or perhaps it reminded him of a bedtime story or a Thomas the Tank Engine episode.
Any larger story of the heart must be my own, and there are many ways to tell it.
Here’s one.
It’s the day before my forty-second birthday and I’m weary. The kids haven’t slept—again. I slam down the stairs at just past five in the morning, Alex in one arm and Jon in the other. Thomas follows closely behind. We squish into the dark couch, and I close my eyes against another day. I can’t do this.
My parents have heard us. My father gets up, while my mother rests a little longer. They’re in their seventies, and we’ve been living at their house for over a month. If I’m weary, they are utterly decimated by the burden of three boisterous grandchildren and a daughter suffering—still—from postpartum depression.
“Why don’t you go back to bed for a while?” my father offers, his gray hair in uncharacteristic spikes. “I’ll look after the boys.”
No. This is my job. I’ll do it. Again and again. Day after day.
We’ve been up for hours when the winter sky lightens. Two thick coffees have left me agitated, and the boys are bored with the toys we brought from home. I have to get out, but it’s December in rural Nova Scotia. There are no open parks, no story-time gatherings, no playgroups, no swimming pools, no friends, not even a clear driveway to ride a tricycle. There’s the mall, and we’ve already been there—many times. I decide to take the kids for a walk in the snow.
I drag the basket of winter clothes from the hall closet. Three snowsuits, but only five mitts, four mismatched boots, and two hats. I begin the daily roundup of lost clothing. By the time I have six boots and three hats, Alex is hungry and Jon has filled his diaper. Thomas has forgotten about going outside and is half-heartedly rebuilding his train tracks.
Raisins for Alex, clean diaper for Jon. I then begin threading toddler limbs into puffy winter clothes. It’s like weaving spaghetti, and the twins protest. Thomas, being older, is usually easier to dress, but he’s having none of it today. In fact, he strips what little he is wearing and flees at the sight of his snowsuit. The twins, immobilized in their winter gear, are whining. I feel heat rise to my face and I set my teeth to an unnatural bite.
I could ask for help, but for the second time this morning, I won’t. There’s a side to depression—mine, at least—that’s indulgent. Not intentional and delicious like, say, chocolate cake, more like wrenching a loose tooth; there’s satisfaction in the pain. So I let myself slip to a familiar but lonely place. The fall is easy and I don’t contemplate the formidable return. I just continue to run after Thomas, waving his snowsuit like a lasso.
He thinks it’s hilarious, either my childish antics or that he’s really, really aggravating his mother. In any case, he keeps it up until the heat in my face flashes to my brain, ignites, and shoots back through my entire body. I catch him. He’s still laughing when I heave his naked body into an old wicker chair in the living room. Baby skin and wicker. He’s not laughing anymore.
So . . .
When Thomas and my father go shopping the following day, he chooses a heart. A heart to remember the smoldering fire in my head and those sorry scratches down his back. A heart to suggest the mother I could be.
That’s one heart story, but there are others.
There is, for instance, the story of a beautiful winter morning that I want my kids to touch. We haven’t much else to do, and I’m weary to the point of tears. Still, the pale December light against a crowd of snowy firs is something this displaced urban family cannot miss.
It would be easier to flip on the television and let Bob the Builder do the work. It would be easier to crawl back to bed and let my parents take over. It would even be easier to let the kids grow bored and to ignore the whines, just for a moment. I’ll do none of these things—but not because I’m a self-indulgent depressive.
I won’t give in to television because TV is passive and dulling and eternally available. This snowy morning is fleeting. It yearns for the taste, crunch, and tumble of my children. I won’t crawl back to bed because I’m blessed with patient, dedicated parents and I will not take them for granted. And I won’t let my kids wallow in boredom because they are as bright and beautiful as the morning outside. I won’t, in other words, use depression as an excuse to stop parenting.
In this story, I’m trying. For over three years, I’ve been trying to raise small children, battle depression, and move across the world—seamlessly. I’m tired. Super Nanny herself would be fatigued. I get frustrated, and sometimes, as when Thomas’s fair skin met the crumbling wicker, I fail disastrously. In this story, however, I’m allowed mistakes.
So . . .
When Thomas and my father go shopping for my birthday, Thomas chooses a heart. A heart to thank me for the countless times I’ve tried. A heart to thank me for the mother I am.
A few weeks after my birthday, we leave my parents’ house and move to Africa. Our furniture is still adrift, but Carl has rented a house and borrowed beds and kitchenware. The tinsel heart, transported with care, is our only decoration. I hang it from a stray cable in the living room. The kids call it “Mommy’s Heart” and they show it to me everyday. Not that it needs pointing out. The heart would be hard to miss in any house, but against our empty white walls, it’s almost riveting.
That’s okay. I like to be reminded. Not of my mistakes, not of that mistake, but of the shifting stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. The events before my forty-second birthday can’t be changed or denied. But just as the winter sun casts both brilliant light and deep shadows, the slant of our stories changes with time, and mood, and circumstance. We craft our truths, and there’s power in remembering and retelling all shades of motherhood.
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