In the morning, I saw my mother in the mirror for the very first time. A bit later that same day, my husband reminded me that my mother-in-law was four years younger than me when she lost her husband to cancer.
There was a magnificent purple in the dusky sky as it beckoned nightfall. I was out of my element, an anxious, slow moving person that held fast to all available handrails in this city of lights, sparkle, and circumstance. We had spent the day in the city: the girl my son will marry, two of her close friends, her mother, and me. I was honored to be included in this entourage on the day that a perfect girl searched for the perfect wedding dress.
So far from my usual rhythm, I was an observer, keenly aware of the passage of time in more ways than one, of a day that included homemade chicken and dumplings at the charming home of one of my older son’s now-grown-up childhood friends; the lilting beats of a street musician; walking in Chicago time with the parade of people-going-places; and the reason for this day: the pursuit of something beautiful, for a beautiful someone.
I had never seen my own resemblance to my mother. That morning, though, there was something. Perhaps it was the cumulative years of wishing that I shared not physical but constitutional characteristics, those which drive her to her successes and motivate her to make a difference on this earth. She is dark-haired and slightly built, tidy in all affairs, accomplished in business and philanthropy, and comfortable in a crowd. I am none of those. But our eyes: they have the same green. Maybe that’s what I saw in the mirror: my own eyes reflecting the soul of my mother into mine. I am not what she has been, but she has given to me what I am.
I wonder if my own daughters will ever see me, or what’s inside of me, in their own reflections. If they see me, and even when they do not, I wonder if they will know.
When my son was ten, there was a time when we worried that he may not survive, that the tumor in his brain might take him away. For a while, the surrounding fears defined our days. Time has taken those fears; time has turned our boy to a young adult, forging his path together with his beloved.
I wasn’t sure what it meant, but once my eyes were opened, I couldn’t forget. It was a bit like a show I had watched some years before we moved to the farm. She would disappear behind a wall, only to emerge in lace, sparkles, fanfare and splendor, all pinned to her tiny frame with clips. It was exciting, dizzying, and beautiful. She sat for a moment beside her mother, and the two seemed almost one person. To me, they resembled one another in many ways that were not just physical. One had carried the other so many years before, and now, flush with emotion on this monumental afternoon, they were at the threshold of something that was to come. I watched them, and I loved them both, and I was grateful to be part of this space in time. I may have been confused by the letters, but in the end, all the signs seemed to make sense.
Tomorrow, my husband will turn the same age as his father was when he left this earth. I hadn’t met him, but I feel as if I have known him, as part of him is carried by his son.
And for our children who were not born to us, still they carry us with them. They carry, too, those that birthed them, and our Maker has made us all as one. Relationships are at once rich, painful, complicated, and the force which pulls us through the years.
And so we walked, together, for a very long time, for however long it took to get there. Through the rhythms, reflected in the mirrors, across the seasons, through biology, adoption, and the extinguishing of life’s light, our blessings abound.
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