Mommy, Nearest
By Lu Hanessian

When I came home with my newborn son eight years ago, my mother flew in to visit for ten days. She stayed for ten weeks

It was not a smooth ride.

This wasn’t because she was stranded in a blizzard. Not because she in traction.

She stayed because I needed her. That’s what she said, anyway.

“You need me,” she implored.

What can a new mother with leaky breasts say to a new grandmother with no boundaries?

The fact is, mother-daughter dynamics are powerful enough without an outrageously beautiful newborn boy in the mix.

Naturally, her experience and my intuition collided mid-air, mid-burp, mid-sentence.

She wanted me to feel happy when my hormones had strapped themselves in for a thrill ride. She wanted me to rest. To put him down. To let someone else take over. To sleep overnight, while she fed the baby.

“Mom, I’m nursing,” I remind her.

“Pump and I’ll give him your milk in a bottle,” she reasons.

One night, in a moment of bone-tired fatigue, I tried this approach to post-partum R&R. I lay awake in my bed at 3:12 a.m., while my mom fed and rocked my sweet boy. I listened for every suckle, every gulp, every pat on the back. I listened while my mother sang a Greek lullaby to him in the hushed tones of twilight.

Kyo pou toh poh nee nah ya nee (Wherever it hurts, let it heal)

Nah nee nah nee nah nee nah (Sleep, sleep, sleep...)

And I fell asleep, just like him.

When I woke up an hour and a half later, my breasts were the size of Texas.

It wasn’t like this the whole ten weeks.

It got worse. And then, it got better.

One night, as I was nursing my son in the pale gray light of dawn, my mother came into my room, and pulled up a seat.

“This is what I’ve lived my whole life for,” she whispered woozily, staring at me and my baby.

Sitting by the nightlight glow, like girl scouts, we talked about dreams, regrets, heartbreaks and hopes.

She was once in my shoes, I realized. She, too, was filled with doubt and idealism, yearning and determination.

But unlike me, she had no mother at the time.

I suddenly felt her loneliness like a cold wind against my face./

I could see her now through the eyes of compassion, not the armor of defense. I could see that she needed to stay until the daffodils bloomed, as much as I needed her to help me bloom too.

In the end, ironically, we needed our conflicts. They carved out a place for our individual stories to emerge. Our clashes made way for our connection. The threads across generations made for a beautiful and original tapestry I couldn’t have sown on my own.

My mother cried like a baby when she said goodbye in the spring. She sobbed, and I held her like my baby. And I felt humbled by how many times she had done the same with me. Now, across the miles of our lives, our roles had finally become interchangeable.

© Lu Hanessian 2006