According to what is written on the back of the photo in my mother’s handwriting, the baby in the photo is me at the age of one week. Seven days, and I already look sick of everything and my hair is preparing itself for the moussing of the 80s.
Six months after my mother’s death, I’ve received a few boxes of items she had kept for me. On first glance, my question was an echoing WHY? It was unfortunate that the first box I opened was cursed with my high school formal photo, to which I exclaimed “Jesus!” and turned the photo upside-down forever. My mother always had a “different” sense of humor.
Underneath, a graveyard of letters, cards, photos, and school artwork. The most disturbing in the early childhood art section was the following drawing, in which I may have been predicting some sort of organ failure for myself. No hands. Hair still standing straight up from my birth experience, as in my 1-week photo. I can understand why my mother kept this one. She must have had questions.
But the letters…I had resistance to opening letters.
The letters were not organized. From college until the time e-mail took over, a record of everything I wanted to tell her (with everything I didn’t want to tell her between the lines).
It’s no surprise I no longer knew my young self. I was once religious. I used to be conservative. I was possessive, impulsive, and I believed I knew “facts” that had only been familiar for five minutes.
However, my mother changed just as much over the years of these letters. When I was travelling the world, she was stationary. When she was influencing international policy in her career, I was resigned to the depression of marriage. In twenty years of letters, we were plonked along various places on every spectrum–economic, political, spiritual, intellectual, geographical–and rarely did we share the same space. More often than not, we were opposites.
Surrounded by evidence of my own evolution, I first concluded that life is long. I was astounded at how many people I have been, how many hats I’ve worn, how many answers only became the source for more questions. The same seemed true for my mother. I always thought of her as a rock, but she was as changeable as clouds. The author of the letters was always a slightly different person, as was the recipient. Somehow, we managed to recognize each other through the masks.
To answer the massive WHY of these boxes of memories, her message to me is probably simple. She kept them because they were meaningful to her. But, she wanted me to have them again after she died, too.
She must have wanted me to know that she held all of these versions of me, from one extreme to another. In the end, none of those details mattered. Love permeated through the superficial and variable.
Also, she appreciated the kindergartner who imagined a meditating, levitating panda.
Such an accurate, beautiful description of the unconditional love in a mother/daughter relationship. Perhaps it is the egocentrism of youth, but I never considered that while I was growing up my mother was growing older and changing too.
Yes, I think it takes several years to realize your mother is just another struggling human. Thanks for reading and commenting!
I love this! I never understood why my mother kept everything for all these years until I became a mother myself. 💙
I know you’re a great mom…and I remember your mom, too! Thanks for reading!
This is so good! After my dad died it was inrersting and more than a little heartbreaking to go through his things and see what he kept. Even his wallet was stuffed full of photos of me.
Going through all that is a special kind of grieving. You see what was really important to them. And it was always you.
I remember when your dad died and I’m sorry you went through that so young. But yes, there’s a lot to be said for the things our parents treasured. Thanks for reading!