If I had words...

I'd make a day for you.

I recall thinking, as I looked at the VHS I rented from the Tom Thumb, that it was going to be a stupid movie. A movie about a talking pig. Really?  Looked stupid. But I had young children, and these G movies were few and far between, it seemed.  Gotta try them all.

And in less than five minutes after I began to watch it, I realized it was going to be one of my favorite movies of all time.  All because of a pig theology that seemed brilliant...and contradictory. 
That all pigs would board a truck that would take them to heaven, which must be beautiful because no pig ever returned to the farm after entering the truck...but Babe...who saw his mother get on the truck only understood one thing, and cried out, "I want my mom!"

And I was hopelessly in love with the movie.

"I want my mom!"

Theology in four words. I've written about it before, perhaps even on this blog.  "I want my mom!" From the moment we leave the womb, on some level, we desire to return to it. We want to go home to the one who loved us literally, with all her being, who gave her life to us and for us...whose heartbeat we recognized as our own, who sang to us from the moment we became a single cell, and rocked us and kept us warm...and so carefully cared for us after our shocking birth into a cold and hard world...

"I want my mom!"

The mother that raised me, told me, that she always knew when I finished my bottle, because she could hear from the kitchen as I threw it against the wall...shattering it, she told me. I guess I was pissed. Even then. I wanted my mom. Why didn't anyone hold me? 

When I was old enough to understand some things, I recall my Uncle Chuck holding me. I recall the feel of his silk shirt against my cheek, little bumpy things under it, which I later learned was hair (he had very curly hair on his chest) and I remember only one conversation, it comes back to me at unanticipated times: "Your father really loves you, Cindy. He just doesn't know how to show it." And he would dry my tears and I would beg him to never leave me. But he did. And that is another story.

It came up again today in conversation with a woman I respect so very much.  We both have the same kinds of problems. We both think like engineers about many of those challenges. We are both grateful for our lives. We both know that we can learn from each other. We both respect each other's ideas.  It's kind of easy because we are not related, so we don't have too many expectations of each other. We both recognize we have many expectations from our families, and in particular, our children.  We want to be a blessing to them...and a blessing to ourselves, too...but it is so very hard to do. 

"I want my mom!" 

God kind of answered that request (okay, demand) for me in her friendship.  She will be as close as I can get to having my mom alive, my biological mom that is...and much of me is content with that love. I truly feel she expects little in return, doesn't really need anything from me, but we enjoy our friendship very much.

How I wish I could have that much comfort with my children!  I don't understand why we make loving our own families so very complicated! But we do.  Why can we not respect our own blood the way we respect the strangers that enter our lives?  Perhaps my thoughts are skewed. Perhaps there really are families that live Norman Rockwell lives.  I wish I knew how to let my children know how much I love them.

If I had words...
I'd tell you
Of that deep joy
Inside my heart
When I first knew
You existed.
Yes
I was scared
And I felt alone
But I also felt
Like I had been given
The best gift
in the whole wide world.

I wasn't ready
I was too young
But there was
a certain magic
and hope
in knowing
a little baby
was growing
inside.

I had dreams for you
before you were born
I thought
concert pianist
president
doctor
lawyer
happy
beautiful
complete
sacred
love.

I made clothes for you
I learned to make
baby food
from scratch
I painted a room for you
made curtains
pulled a broken
rocking chair
out of the dump
painted it white
with yellow daisies
I made you a stuffed kitty
and placed it in your crib
waiting for the day
when you would sleep there
and I would sing to you
and hold you
feed you
clean you
read to you
and love you as best I could

Those moments were only the beginning
of many firsts
learning how to mother
how to hold on
and more painfully
how to let go

The good moments are easily forgotten
inside the disappointments
and wars
of what I wanted
and what you wanted

I get that
we both had to learn
to grow up

I wish I had words
for what is happening now
But I don't have any words
to go with these feelings
yet

I do get it though
But I'm not ready
To write about it here
what it is like
to lose one so suddenly

I can only say
that I remember
how much I wanted her to stay
but she didn't
or couldn't...

How much I wanted him to stay
But the world took him away
And I never really got over
losing him

But I hear him
over 40 years later,
telling me
it's going to be alright.

I believe him.
I think that's what your dad would want you to know
It's going to be alright

If I had words
I'd say it pretty
But I don't

Love, Cindy