The Glimmer

Jackie, my sweet, kind guru and friend, said that I need to share this.  So I will.  It's a little tricky, you see, because I try to keep my kid's privacy to some degree.  I have never shared some big giant moments that would have made for some hefty reading, because they were too tender or personal for my kids.  Guy says that these experiences I have with my kiddos are mine as well, and thinks I have the right to share them, which creates a bit of a conundrum.  So, I will tiptoe carefully through my story.  I'll do it for Jackie.  And maybe for you, too.

*****

When gentle Adam was about four, he decided to throw his FIRST EVER temper tantrum.  He had a great teacher in his older brother, and I suppose he figured he'd try it on for size. It surprised us both.  With a mock look of surprise on my face, I jokingly made an impassioned plea, "Who are you!?!  And what have you done with my little boy, Adam?!?!"  

As quickly as it had come, the tantrum melted away, and with eyes brimming with tears, Adam passionately replied, "It's me, Mama!  I'm right here!"  It was the last time Adam ever went away.

*****

About six months ago, the sweet 15 year old with long dark hair and sky blue eyes who lives here left our house, and a girl who looks exactly like her came to visit.  The new girl only stayed for a day, but it was not a fun day.  At the end of that particular day, and after one especially unpleasant exchange, she exercised her ocular rotational skills, tested the structural integrity of the floor boards on the stairs, and then practiced her percussive fortitude on the bedroom door.

About five minutes later my real daughter (having magically returned) came out of that room, walked straight to me and burst into tears.  "I'm sorry, Mom!  That was just ridiculous!  I can't believe I acted like that!"

She meant it, too.  She wept and hugged me, and we talked for a long time about stuff.  It was good.  Really good.  But slowly and surely, that other girl, that one with the stompy feet, moved back in.  To stay.

Mostly, now, she practices deep breathing... make that, deep exhalation.  Responses to parental requests these days are... well, let's call them spicy.  Oh, and the one eyebrow lift!  She's gotten really good at that.  She generously cools us with her frustrated hair flips, and for some reason when I speak to her, several times a day her head drops back abruptly to set her gaze irksomely at the ceiling.  I've looked.  I don't see anything up there.

Being the mother of a teenage girl has truly become everything I was told to expect by the mothers of former-teenage-girls in my life.  Good times.  Good times.

So, the other day I asked the long-term-impostor-teenage girl for a few words.  Barely had I begun to get those few words out, reminding her of the time her clone had sweetly apologized for "being ridiculous", when she abruptly broke in. "I know... I am so sorry," her voice trembled as she began to cry.  "I was awful to you about that history assignment yesterday, and I wanted to say sorry, but Dad was right there and I felt awkward.  I've been just awful all the time lately, to everybody!  And I don't even know why!!!"

I held her in my arms and she wept.  We talked - that same mom-daughter stuff that is so important at the time, the words of which you can't remember later.  But even in that moment, God whispered back to me the lessons of 21 years of mothering...

He reminded me that the day when Adam left and came right back was a fluke, and of times in the past when, with others of my children, I had a special moment like this one, and thought, "Yay!  The light at the end of the tunnel!  We are almost out of the deep, dark, obnoxious woods!  Hello, sanity!  Welcome back, child,  I've missed you!" only to see them vanish again.

Instead, God told me that this was The Glimmer.  The one that says, "Remember that darling baby, the one that your body grew, the one that lived off of your flesh and then your milk for endless months?  That tiny human that you cleaned and rocked, that covered you in pee and poo and gallons of vomit, and every excrement known to motherhood?  Remember that little being whose tiny smile lit your world like a thousand suns, and for whom you were the universe? Whose sweet voice brought more joy than you'd ever known before? Who toddled joyfully into your arms for comfort from pain or fear, or just to be near you? That precious child that you would have given, done, lived and fought and sacrificed anything for?...

"She's still in there.  She's not back yet, but she will be, someday.  She's in there.  That person you adore, who actually, truly does love you.  Enjoy this tiny moment.  She's not here to stay, but she's in there."


It's me, Mama.  I'm right here.