A Dream of Mothers

I stand immobilized on a deserted beach as night approaches.  By the dunes, a tiny helpless kitten is struggling on the wet sand.  Far away, a human baby lies, crying soundlessly. At terrifying speed, a giant sandworm is tunneling towards me, forming a rising mountain ridge of sand. I only have time to save one of them.

Upon waking, all that remains is the terror of the unknown and the future responsibility for the human being on the way. I am not sure which one I saved.  But the nightmare exposed my deepest fear—I would not only be an imperfect mother, but sadly, a terrible one.

Many years later, we took in Mouse, a beautiful eight-year-old Maine coon. His human was getting married, but the guy was deeply allergic. I later learned Mouse had spent a lot of time alone, in a small studio apartment. Despite the full house of feline brothers and sisters, despite all the love and care I gave him, he would often sit at the window, or on the balcony looking into the distance. Did he miss his first human mom? Was he remembering? There was such a deep sadness in his eyes. Then for some inexplicable reason, I suddenly realized, mothers don’t have to be perfect to love and be loved. 

I shared this epiphany with my son. I said, I hope doing the best I can is enough. He responded with a teenage roll of his eyes. His mother was being “weird” again. But I suspect my son understood this all along. He never expected me to be some imaginary leave-it-to-beaver mom. Once when I disastrously tried to cook from scratch, as we both decided to dump the whole mess, as we both laughed and said, Great Wall (our favorite Chinese take-out), he said to me, mom, you don’t have to be good at everything!

Towards the end of my mother’s life, when she was bedridden most of the time, she lay, silent, like a beached whale, bloated with all the drugs they pumped into her.  She looked at us from far away, as she slowly left.  But even as her memory deteriorated, something persisted, holding on. My son was the grandchild she protected from evil spirits. She placed a pair of open scissors under his crib mattress (because spirits are afraid of sharp edges). She once circled him in her arms over an open fire in front of our house, to dispel his nightmares (evil spirits fear fire). In those final weeks, I remember my son standing at her bedside.  She looked up at him, struggling to focus, then finally, with full intent, she said — Jamie. I love you. He held her hand and said, I love you too grandma.

I see my mother across the hotel lobby. She is wrapped in her favorite fur coat. She is her young self again and she is lost. I walk over, write an address on a piece of paper. Mom, I say, just give this to the driver. He’ll take you where you need to go.

I hope she has finally found her way home.