I have spent much time these past few months since Harper has arrived trying to work out this parenting thing. The juggling, the tantruming, the good and bad behaviours (from all of us) all of it – trying to work out how to be a better mother, a more caring, less frustrated and angry mother. I want my kids to feel loved by me. Feel like they are understood, listened to, loved, cared for and like they can have a good time with me. I have felt like pulling my fucking hair out at times I can admit. I have felt like a failure, a sham, a bitch and a tired, fat cranky thing. I have felt at times like it’s all just too hard.
Lucky Duck
February 9, 2010 by 3 Comments
Then yesterday I was on Facebook and saw one of my friends from Mothers Group talking about her little girls birthday. All our kids are born around the same time (der of course they are) and then I remembered there is one of us who won’t get to wish her little boy a happy birthday. It slapped me in the face with full force. Time goes on, all our lives get busy, our kids get older. But my poor friend Jules has to see our next round of birthday photos of our big kids now who are long, and smart, and funny, and all she has left is a memory of her little boy who will always be just 15 months old. Poor Lachie would have been 3 last week, and yet his parents had to visit a gravesite instead with balloons and presents for him, rather than feel chubby little arms around them, hear constant babbling talking and the joyous giggles of a kid who now gets birthdays, and feel the pure joyous love that comes from a 3 year old. Talk about unfair. My heart aches for her. I cannot imagine her pain, her deep, painful loss and the perpetual thinking about what could have been now. She says she is still angry. And I cannot blame her. It’s just so very unfair.
So I want to say Happy Birthday to that beautiful little boy Lachie. Who was taken far too early from this life from the mystery that is SIDS. I want to acknowledge the loss that Julia has felt, and for all my friends who have lost children who have been still born, or lost through miscarriage. I am one lucky duck who has been fortunate to think about getting pregnant in one breath, and then in the next seen two lines on a stick, and 9 months later had healthy, amazing children in my arms. I cannot imagine your loss, or pain because of your losses. And I will once again count my lucky stars that I have children who test me every day and make me a better mother – no woman – every single day.
While I am not an overly religious person my Mum gave me this prayer that I read every day:
Thank you for this child
That I call mine,
Not my possession
But my sacred charge.
Teach me patience and humility
So that the best I know
May flow into it’s being.
Let me always remember –
Mother love is my natural instinct
But my child’s love
Must ever be deserved and earned;
That for love, I must give love,
That for understanding, I must give understanding,
That for respect, I must give respect;
That as I was the giver of life,
So must I be the giver always,
With no planned returns.
Help me to share my child with life
And not to clutch at it for my own sake.
Give me courage to do my share
To make this world a better place
For all children, and my own.
Beautiful words Beth. I’m sure nothing dulls the pain but your thoughts and love must be a huge comfort for your friend. I adore that prayer – so true!
I NEEDED to hear this. I’m saying a little prayer for your friend, and then printing off this prayer this instant and taping it up in my bathroom, and in my kitchen to read it every. single. day.
Thanks babe. I needed some per-fucking-spective too.
It is easy to get the blues some days with young children. To beat yourself up and want to vent every little frustration, thank you for the reminder of how precious this time is.
When I was 18 a little 4.5 year old that I babysat was killed by a drunk driver. Her picture hangs in my children’s room, she is their guardian angel and she reminds me not to waste time on petty things.
I too needed some perspective.