40. Ten Thousand Mothers – Meaghan Calcari Campbel
Mother. It’s amazing that one word can contain so much: person, concept, feeling, action.
Mother. It’s amazing that one word can contain so much: person, concept, feeling, action.
It’s Mother’s Day in many places around the world—from the United States to Turkey, and from Brazil to India, Ghana, and Belgium.
The day can evoke a gamut of emotions, from joy to grief.
I am not a mother in the biological sense. Cancer took away the chance for me to bear my own children. Perhaps because of that, I am always turning over stones along the pathway of motherhood. Reconsidering, what makes a mother? Interviewing people about their experiences birthing children, choosing not to have children, losing children or losing the possibility of having children. Studying how cultures around the world mother expansively and inclusively. Dreaming of the mother who birthed the stars and the seas. Reflecting on how I’ve been mothered by so many, who have cared for my wounds, rubbed my back, listened to my wails and my worries about what is and what might be. Sensing an itch of curiosity about what it would feel like to become an ancestor, while wondering if, because of someone I’ve mothered along the way, I already am one.
– Meaghan Calcari Campbel
Prompt:
Write a letter to someone who (or something that) has mothered you—gave you medicine when you needed it, raised you, reminded you that your story needs to be told, gave you life, or saw you wholly, maybe for the first time. What would you say? What would you want this person (or thing) to know?
Alyssa Swart
Location: New York
About: This letter is to a friend who was often more like a mother to me. We have not spoke in ten years, for no true reason other than tending to crises within our own lives; I wish I had offered to tend together. I miss her every day.
Age: 32
Dear N,
I miss you every single day. I know I carry your grace, humor and wisdom within me, and for that, I have endless gratitude to express. Plus, I want to find out about your boys, your inspirations, your predictions for the future.
Your intelligence always lacked pretension or elitism, despite the fact that you are still one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. But, as you taught me, it is so much harder to be kind than to be smart, and I should always find the kind people in the room.
I still frequently think of your anecdotes – the audience member who told you not to call him “love,” the marbles vs. golf balls when assessing the worth of panicking. You were always so generous with your life. You were a gentle caretaker for me – knowing my fragility, yet how much I craved independence. You supported me with minimal steerage, just unyielding support, even throughout my angst-addled teens and lost early twenties.
You knew me. Understood me. Welcomed me into your world anyway.
You connected me to your high school friends for internships, while convinced I would eventually pursue a career in education. You listened to me bark about the overstimulation of Manhattan and the assumed romance of the West Coast, while lightly intoning that I was in the city where I needed to be. Meanwhile, I earned my masters degree three days ago in Childhood General Education and Literacy. I lasted six months on the West Coast.
Ultimately, I just want to thank you. Thank you for the IHOP pancakes the night I was rejected from Wesleyan. Thank you for the myriad lattes while we talked about topics for my college application essays. Thank you for the first aid kit you gave me when I went to college. It’s the only one anybody has ever given me. I still have it. Thank you for the sex talk in a Starbucks seating area. Thank you for the stories about your dates with misunderstood athletes. Thank you for the early morning, late night, late afternoon, early afternoon talks about literature or roommates or your kids or peanut butter. Thank you for checking on me every day while I was away over the summer. Thank you for silently teaching me all it can mean to be a woman. Thank you for never judging my sullenness or pressuring me to be any other way. Thank you for convincing me to leave my dorm and take a walk. Thank you for the makeup remover you brought from Ireland. Thank you for encouraging me to ask the fellow freshmen that I wanted to befriend to share a suite with me for the next year – their assent disbanded a hefty dose of my cynicism. Thank you for your unabashed feminism, while I was still spewing my feminism-lite. Thank you for the early insight that all those freshman friendships were temporary and mutable. They were, radically so. Thank you for sharing your life with me – your son’s dyslexia, your own illness, the impossible demands of parenting, your love of Ireland. Thank you for teaching me that egg yolks are important because they have choline. Thank you for tacitly believing in me. Thank you for asking me what actor I would cast for a literary character – I use that trick all the time. Thank you for acknowledging the importance of details while giving me greater perspective.
Thank you for every wink and every hug. I love you so. I hope you are well on this Mother’s Day, receiving love from your own lucky little ones.
Love Always,
Alyssa
Andrea Haeruman
Location: Bandung, Indonesia
About: I miss my Mom...*speechless
Age: 48
Anonymous
Dear Ten Thousand Mothers,
Though I have a certain amount of pride in my independence and self-reliance, I have moved past the “Into the Wild” phase of my mid-20s when I thought I could subsist completely without other humans and needed no help from nobody. My real biological mother was appalled by this idea, but in her infinite wisdom, knew it was largely a phase (I still have a touch of Into the Wild Syndrome) and didn’t fight me too hard on it. Looking back, I didn’t start to come out of that phase until reaching a real low point in the spring of my California year, when I just kind of emotionally gave up and submitted to mothering actions from others, specifically the mothering of Uncle Daniel. He had the magic balance of letting me be my own person, but providing food and support and guidance that was unwavering but not pushy. I’m actually crying now, writing about him. Though he’s family by blood, making the decision to move my life across the country for a year to be closer to him and the kids and Donna made him “chosen family” too. He had a way of making me understand that it brought him joy to bring me an Americano in the morning, and cook dinner for the family at night. He made it abundantly clear that in no way was I a burden, which was and is a deep-seeded fear of mine. He had a different style of mothering than my mom, which I probably wouldn’t have liked as much as a kid, but which for some reason I really needed as a 25-/26-year-old. He always listened and cared, and somehow perfectly mothered my while treating me like the self-sufficient adult I was.
That year was a really difficult year for me to accept care. I had it in my mind that I could start from scratch in a new place and make a new life completely by myself. Of course that’s ridiculous, but like I said, I’m creating and diagnosing myself with Into the Wild Syndrome. I mean, I had it bad, then. I remember an evening at Littlefoot’s after I had jammed my finger trying to catch a bottle of brandy at work, and we were just sitting in his living room and talking. My finger was still hurting, and he offered to get me a bowl of ice to rest it in. I protested and said he didn’t have to do it, that I could. And his response was that of course you could, Naomi, but it’s easy for me to do to help a friend so just sit and wait while I get you some ice. And that was so hard for me. Not in the sense of “I don’t deserve to be taken care of,” but “if I can do something myself, why should I let someone else do it for me?” Like I said, I still feel a tinge of that, but looking back I realize how difficult I was making my life and my relationships. Letting people help me brings us closer. Letting people “mother” me creates stronger bonds both in the shared responsibility of whatever it is we’re doing and in the vulnerability it requires to allow it to happen. It’s silly that a bowl of ice stuck with me all these years. I remember talking about it to a therapist I saw for a short time out there. It was a big deal.
I also want to recognize my own mother’s act of mothering. It looks very different now, of course, but I’ve come to accept this change in our relationship though it took all my mid- to late-20s to get there. I wouldn’t say that she sees me as a peer or friend - I’m still very much her daughter. But she definitely doesn’t feel the need to take care of me, though she makes sure to demonstrate care for me. I don’t call her for solutions to my personal problems (though I do for simple household problems), but I still talk to her about my problems for the purpose of getting reality checks from her or just to vent. She’s got plenty of other people to actually problem-solve for, and I can figure out my own shit. I love caring for her by making her laugh. And I’m pretty good at it, too. :) I know what’ll get her going, and I like doing that because I don’t know who else does that for her so reliably. Greenfields are funny people so I try to make that work. I’m trying to be kinder and more patient with her, I really am. I used to be quite standoffish. Yeesh, I was not a great daughter/friend during my Into the Wild phase. Sorry.
Several of my closest work friends are also mothers themselves, and through them I can see how the teaching work that I do is largely mothering, but confined to certain times of day. I am still pretty sure I do not want to be a biological mother, but I think I’m pretty good at being a teacher-mother. I’ll take that.
Anonymous
Dear Ten Thousand Mothers,
Though I have a certain amount of pride in my independence and self-reliance, I have moved past the “Into the Wild” phase of my mid-20s when I thought I could subsist completely without other humans and needed no help from nobody. My real biological mother was appalled by this idea, but in her infinite wisdom, knew it was largely a phase (I still have a touch of Into the Wild Syndrome) and didn’t fight me too hard on it. Looking back, I didn’t start to come out of that phase until reaching a real low point in the spring of my California year, when I just kind of emotionally gave up and submitted to mothering actions from others, specifically the mothering of Uncle Daniel. He had the magic balance of letting me be my own person, but providing food and support and guidance that was unwavering but not pushy. I’m actually crying now, writing about him. Though he’s family by blood, making the decision to move my life across the country for a year to be closer to him and the kids and Donna made him “chosen family” too. He had a way of making me understand that it brought him joy to bring me an Americano in the morning, and cook dinner for the family at night. He made it abundantly clear that in no way was I a burden, which was and is a deep-seeded fear of mine. He had a different style of mothering than my mom, which I probably wouldn’t have liked as much as a kid, but which for some reason I really needed as a 25-/26-year-old. He always listened and cared, and somehow perfectly mothered my while treating me like the self-sufficient adult I was.
That year was a really difficult year for me to accept care. I had it in my mind that I could start from scratch in a new place and make a new life completely by myself. Of course that’s ridiculous, but like I said, I’m creating and diagnosing myself with Into the Wild Syndrome. I mean, I had it bad, then. I remember an evening at Littlefoot’s after I had jammed my finger trying to catch a bottle of brandy at work, and we were just sitting in his living room and talking. My finger was still hurting, and he offered to get me a bowl of ice to rest it in. I protested and said he didn’t have to do it, that I could. And his response was that of course you could, Naomi, but it’s easy for me to do to help a friend so just sit and wait while I get you some ice. And that was so hard for me. Not in the sense of “I don’t deserve to be taken care of,” but “if I can do something myself, why should I let someone else do it for me?” Like I said, I still feel a tinge of that, but looking back I realize how difficult I was making my life and my relationships. Letting people help me brings us closer. Letting people “mother” me creates stronger bonds both in the shared responsibility of whatever it is we’re doing and in the vulnerability it requires to allow it to happen. It’s silly that a bowl of ice stuck with me all these years. I remember talking about it to a therapist I saw for a short time out there. It was a big deal.
I also want to recognize my own mother’s act of mothering. It looks very different now, of course, but I’ve come to accept this change in our relationship though it took all my mid- to late-20s to get there. I wouldn’t say that she sees me as a peer or friend - I’m still very much her daughter. But she definitely doesn’t feel the need to take care of me, though she makes sure to demonstrate care for me. I don’t call her for solutions to my personal problems (though I do for simple household problems), but I still talk to her about my problems for the purpose of getting reality checks from her or just to vent. She’s got plenty of other people to actually problem-solve for, and I can figure out my own shit. I love caring for her by making her laugh. And I’m pretty good at it, too. :) I know what’ll get her going, and I like doing that because I don’t know who else does that for her so reliably. Greenfields are funny people so I try to make that work. I’m trying to be kinder and more patient with her, I really am. I used to be quite standoffish. Yeesh, I was not a great daughter/friend during my Into the Wild phase. Sorry.
Several of my closest work friends are also mothers themselves, and through them I can see how the teaching work that I do is largely mothering, but confined to certain times of day. I am still pretty sure I do not want to be a biological mother, but I think I’m pretty good at being a teacher-mother. I’ll take that.