Travel

Off the Mother Road but not off Mothering

By DesignGoddess on May 29, 2008 in Travel Blog

The best laid plans and all that…sometimes it’s just better to trust one’s instincts… I’ve been offline for awhile due to a crisis in Los Angeles. Kind of a big crisis actually, but my mothering instincts helped save my mother’s life from 2600 miles away.  So, as much as I want to break away from nourishing others, I can’t say I’m there yet. 

Maybe it’s a female thing or maybe just a lifetime of knowing the nuances of someone’s voice but after talking to my mother in the wee hours of the morning last Friday, my mothering instinct kicked in and forced me to call my brothers who live in the same city as she does and tell them she needed to get to a hospital ASAP.  When I had spoken with her the previous evening she thought she may have gotten the flu but now as time had passed it was apparent something else was going on…Her heart rate dropped to 30, BP 40/?  She was cold and shivering on the floor covered in bodily wastes but managed to answer my call…One of my brothers arrived, broke the door down, called 911 and got her to the hospital.  He was told in another half hour she would have been gone.  Now, five days later she is in surgery as I type, getting a pacemaker imbedded (or whatever they do) and I’m by a lake in Michigan sending her healing thoughts from the deep mothering place that is a part of my core.  

UPDATE from the hospital…Mama is ok, as now, am I.  For those of you out there in viritual reality that don’t know me personally, one of my mothering tasks of late has been ‘taking care of’ my mother.  Living in the same house our roles have sort of reversed …she is still very independent but I definitely do care for her needs.  It is a very delicate dance we do, her needing more care and not wanting to acknowledge it nor give up her   unique ways of doing things and me not wanting to step on her toes, not really wanting to do all the work but seeing it needs to be done.  Read between the lines here… it is a challenge but in my heart of hearts I am honored to participate in the circle/cycle of life like this opportunity affords.

Two books that I have read on this trip that address the mother/daughter care giving issue (albeit in a somewhat dark light) are The Almost Moon, Alice Seybold and Three Women, Marge Piercy.  Read the review of Sebolds book in the New Yorker   and knew I had to read it…opens with the daughter murdering her mother after her mother shits herself and works backward exploring their intensely emotional and fractured relationship.  Not like my relationship but did evoke some self examination.  It’s relatively current.  The Piercy book I bought at a yard sale 3 years ago and tells the tale of a mother, daughter and grand-daughter… all three women are complex and larger than life, also involves murder and redemption…The mother daughter relationship as the roles change is obviously of great interest to me…is it to you? Discuss….