My Undocumented Life

by Natalie Gillespie (c) 2017

 

I have flown cross-country, in the middle seat, with a child who didn’t realize he had the stomach flu until enjoying the snack and beverage service.

 

I’ve joined my teenager on a high-speed, full 360-degree rollercoaster… with my eyes open.

 

I’ve gone shopping with an adolescent daughter… and shared my opinion.

 

I reached into my son’s backpack with my bare hands, after it festered in a hot corner of the garage all summer long.

 

But there is one thing… a single phrase… that stops this fearless mother cold.

 

“I hope you captured that in the baby book!” Its many variations are equally chilling: “Make sure you write down that memory!” “Put that one on Instagram.” “That is a photo album keeper.”

 

Those words turn my heart to ice. Because as much as I love my children and cherish every darling thing they do, I am terrible about capturing it.

 

We live in the moment and rarely look back.

 

It’s not that I don’t have good intentions. The back of my closet pulses with journals documenting the first three days of January—but not a day longer… for more years than I want to admit.

 

That fun-and-super-creative scrapbook? Two award-worthy pages completed, 5,760 to go.

The photo frames on my mantle? Filled with those gorgeous children… whose photos come in the frame.  When my son was little, I overheard him say, “I don’t know who those people are, but my mom really likes them. Their pictures are everywhere.” I started pretending they were distant cousins named 8x10 and 5x7.

 

I started motherhood with good intentions. Expecting my first child, I packed a beautiful “Baby’s First Year” album in my hospital bag. Luckily, he gave me 22 long hours of childbirth to remember to give it to the nurse. She put his minutes-after-birth little baby footprints right there on page 2. At home, I inscribed his name and details on those first pages.

 

But then I got distracted… His belly laughs and constant feedings took precedence over writing down details. There were no blanks for “number of hours spent gazing at baby toes.” And who has time to write when there are raspberries to blow on baby bellies? The book stayed blank…

 

I tell a friend the latest adorable thing my kids said or did and those horrible, well-intentioned words inevitably rip the joy out of the moment: “I hope you’re writing this down!” You know what they’re really saying: “Catch it and lock it in before everything disappears.”

 

And that’s the thing. I know how fast it all goes. I blinked and my son accelerated from Little Tikes car to Nissan Versa. And I see how others do a much, much, better job of sharing, well – everything – about their kids. I wish that were me, but kind of in the “I wish I were a supermodel but I’d rather eat these potato chips” kind of way.  Given a choice of doing or documenting, I went for making the moment every time.

 

That’s not to say we didn’t take photos – there are boxes of them – but not consistently, and I never found time to catalog. That became a problem when my son Ian hit tenth grade and took child psychology.  “We get extra credit if we include details of our own development and photos as we grew,” Ian said one evening.

 

The moment I was waiting for! Now I had the impetus to sort through and put those pictures in an album. I pictured the shadowy attic piles almost with excitement.

 

“That’ll be fun. When’s it due?” I asked.

 

“Tomorrow.”

I nearly lost consciousness. I can’t even clear a path in the attic to the boxes of photos by tomorrow. “That’s not possible,” I protested.  “You were born before digital photography was invented… and, it’s not my fault you need extra-credit.” A strong offense is the best defense.

 

My husband stepped into the battle between guilt-ridden mom and procrastinating teen. “I’ve always thought your baby brother looked an awful lot like you… really almost identical, wouldn’t you say?” As he walked out the door, he said “Just make sure there are no details in the background to show he was born 9 years later.”

 

There’s maternal guilt and there’s “I helped my son fake his own baby pictures for an A” guilt. While we’re at it, does it really matter how old he was when he took first steps and got first teeth? He ran cross-country and wore braces… clearly those early milestones happened sometime, even if I didn’t track them.

 

And maybe that’s it. Even if I didn’t record the moments of this life, I did help create them.

At every step of the way, our actions reinforce “Be Good.  Be Kind.  Live Life to the Fullest.”

 

 So I wonder:

Would the surprise “pull-off-the-road-I-think-I-saw-a-whale!” moment we shared on our trip to Iceland be any more magical if I posted on Facebook? 

 

Would the accidental family hike to the nude beach really be any more shocking if I’d shared it on Instagram?

 

Does having albums documenting every first day, winning goal, and end-of-year concert let us hold on to their childhood any longer?

 

Or, even without documentation, have these fleeting moments formed who our children are becoming:

People who celebrate beauty in unexpected places… Who dive in and take on the next challenge… Who make getting lost into an adventure, even if in their subconscious they hear their mother’s shrill voice saying “LOOK AT THE OCEAN! DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUNBATHERS!”

 

A few years ago, I started Thanksgiving with an early morning visit to my 99 year-old grandmother in the nursing home. At the last minute, Ian gave up a morning in pajamas watching the Macy’s parade to join me.

 

My grandmother was unusually lucid when I arrived, and as Ian entered the room behind me, her face turned to pure joy. “You!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe you came here to be with me!” Her smile was wide, her eyes radiant.  I swear Ian grew three inches taller in the presence of her delight.

 

A moment passed, and then she asked, “Who are you again?”

 

In her mind, he was someone else, a loved one from long ago. As we’d been taught in dealing with her dementia, we allowed my grandmother to be wherever her mind took her. Ian’s gentle responses allowed her to know: she was being visited by someone who loved her dearly, whomever she wanted that to be. I hadn’t seen her so happy in many, many years. That memory gave us comfort when she died just a few weeks later.

 

On the way home that Thanksgiving morning, I thanked Ian for joining me, for sparking such happiness. “She didn’t even know who I was,” he protested.

 

“It doesn’t matter who we are or what we remember,” I responded, “as long as we bring love and joy in the moment, wherever we go.”

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My Declaration of Independence

by Natalie Gillespie (c) 2015

 

Ian proudly showed the burn mark on his hand to everyone at the morning bus stop. “Look what happened to me!” he proclaimed, pulling back his sleeve to give everyone a better view, recounting the drama of a hot griddle and a slippery pancake needing to be flipped.

 

“What were you doing making pancakes?” another mother asked. Ian seemed confused by the question. How else would a seven-year-old get pancakes for dinner, if his father was traveling and his mother had just gotten home from work and his baby sister needed to be breastfed? After all, I had said “if you want pancakes for dinner, you’ll need to make them yourself.” He wrapped that all up into a short answer “That’s what I wanted for dinner.”

 

I was there, I thought defensively… supervising, kind of. I’d run cold water over the burn right away.  

 

“Oh, that’s right,” said the other mother at the bus stop. “Since your mother works, you have to be… ‘independent.’ ” From her lips, that sounded like an insult, something to be ashamed of. You have to be… independent.

 

All the way to work, I replayed the bus stop conversation in my mind. It doesn’t take much to make any mother feel guilty, and it was easy to count my sins: away from my kids during the workday… scrambling during that witching hour when we all descended back home, hungry, tired, making the transition back to family. Allowing a seven-year-old to operate the griddle? And let’s not even talk about PANCAKES for DINNER?!  

 

One word kept coming to the top of my mind: “independent.” “You have to be Independent.” And then it hit me! On any given day, there may be a million things I’ve done that I’d like to change, but raising my kids to stand on their own is not one of them. If that’s the outcome of working or having such low standards that we serve breakfast after 6 p.m., then hooray. Because independence is a mother’s gift to her children.   

 

It didn’t start out this way. There was a time when I was completely and absolutely devoted to my children, attending to their every need, with them constantly, every moment, without interruption, as they hung on my every word. But then came… childbirth. And wham, out into the big wide world they came, breathing, thinking, choosing, all on their own. A new era.  

 

In those moments after birth, I tried to give my firstborn my full attention for as long as he wanted. I wasn’t letting anything get in the way of bonding during these first minutes together. Apparently, though, being born wasn’t nearly as exhausting as giving birth. When we hit 45 minutes of gazing into each other’s eyes, I suggested he rest. At sixty minutes, I said, “Count me out.” One hour as a mother and I had to admit: I couldn’t do it all for my child. 

 

Over the months and years as Ian grew, of course I loved and nurtured him and provided for his needs. At the same time, we encouraged him to stand on his own. From feeding himself to choosing his own clothes, even when it meant those yellow rubber boots worn everywhere. From encouraging him to order for himself in restaurants, to speak up when he had something to say, to be the person who can “do anything you set your mind to.” To be… independent.

 

Ian was 15 months old and younger than the other kids in his child care center classroom as they were preparing to move up to Toddlers. “He’s not ready,” I explained to the teachers. “We’d be smart to let him stay here for another year.” “Here” was the comfort of cribs instead of cots, high chairs with safety straps, nurturing caregivers to hold him throughout the day. “Here” meant staying small, staying close, staying my baby.

 

That’s when I learned of Ian’s double life… for months he’d been jumping at every chance to visit the toddler room, loving the play kitchen and the secret loft and the ability to choose his own adventures.

 

I faced reality. This wasn’t a question of whether or not Ian becomes independent.  The question was, could I? Could I allow him to fly, even if it meant flying away from me? The only thing worse than the lump in my throat? The idea of holding him back from the joy of moving ahead.  

 

So I learned to say yes: to riding his bike around the block, even though I knew he’d be pedaling away from me. Yes to becoming a junior counselor at sleepaway camp 90 minutes away, with one day’s notice to pack his things and report to duty in a “cabin” in the woods with cloth walls and a pile of leaves under the bed… a bed I wouldn’t be tucking him into, after days when I hadn’t talked to him, when we’d lived separate lives. Yes to two weeks backpacking through Yosemite National Park, taking only what you truly need. Which, it turns out, is just three pairs of underwear… and not your mother.

 

As he delighted in each new adventure, spreading his wings wider and faster, I was tempted to say “No, stay here, stay close. I’ll make the pancakes.”

 

But that’s not my job as his mother. So I stand a little taller. I release my grip a little more. I ask, “What’s your next summit?” I realize the joy in our independence.