Lately,I’ve begun to look on motherhood as an initiation into“real life”.I don’t think I realized until Jana’s birth that the life I’d led previously—relatively free,easy,and affluent—is not the life led by most people—past or present.By becoming a mother,I seem to have acquired automatic membership into a universal club made up of uncertainties and vulnerabilities,limitations and difficulties,and sometimes,unsolvable problems.Of course,the club has its benefits,too.
When Jana wakes from her afternoon nap and,so happy to see me,gives me her radiant full-face smile,I smile back and feel on my own face the smile you used to give me when I woke up in the morning.Or,when Jana does something particularly cute,I’ll glance up at Gary,and in the look we exchange I see the one I remember crossing between you and dad at opposite ends of the dinner table.It was a look full of feelings I never knew until now.
When I hold Jana close to me and look down to see my hand tight across her chest.Or when I tuck a blanket around her while she sleeps and touch the skin of her cheek.I see your hands(those hardworking hands with their smooth oval nails,steady and capable and caring)doing the same things.Then I feel as if some of the love and security you gave to me through those hands is now in mine,as I pass that love on to Jana.
The other day Jana fell asleep against my arm.I must have spent fifteen or twenty minutes staring at her,marveling at the wheat color of her hair,the suppleness of her skin,her perfect tiny red mouth,moving now and then in sleep.What a rush I felt,of love and wonder,of care and luck,and more.I suddenly remembered something I saw on your face last summer,when I was home on a visit shortly after Jana’s birth.
We were sitting on the glider swing in the backyard.It was a lovely morning,cool there in the shade,and the air was full of fragrance from your rose garden.I was holding Jana,who seemed to enjoy the gentle movement of the swing.