My Hardest Lesson of Motherhood

Before one becomes a parent, you hear all sorts of cliches - "you'll learn when you become a parent" or "you never know or appreciate how much your mother/father loves you until you become a mother/father yourself" or the newest "to be a mother is to let your heart walk around outside your body" or something like that. I am paraphrasing I know, the sentiment is more important than the actual words at the moment. These are harsh and to a certain extent true. Though, I honestly work hard not to utter them to friends without kids, especially the first.
But let me share with you the first lesson I learned upon becoming a mother. It is by far the harshest, saddest, most beautiful and most hopeful lesson I have ever learned.
For me, and I say for me because I truly believe that every new parent will come into parenthood already knowing different things, thereby making the lessons they learn different than the lessons their peers learn and different than the lessons they will learn with each child. This is part of the beauty of parenthood, every new experience, like snowflakes, are wildly and subtly unique.
For me, motherhood is an incredible gift. A gift that comes with incredible responsibility that I work hard to never underestimate, shirk or trivialize. I try to show my gratitude to my daughter, to my husband, to whatever higher power that may exist. I am truly grateful for the amazing gift of a child.
And part of the package is an incredible amount of love. Now, I have felt love. Of course the love of my own mother, which I do appreciate more now just how significant that love is, the love of my brothers, my friends and of course my husband. Specifically, my husband. This may sound a bit egotistical, and that's ok, ours is the love fairy tales are made of. Or at least, that is how it feels. I have jokingly said in the past that my husband and I share a functional and healthy co-dependence. HA! Seriously, ours is a true love. Like "The Princess Bride" kind of TRUE LOVE. Now I am not saying that our storybook love negates or undermines your storybook love. I hope there are millions of fairy tale love stories out there. Ours can co-exist and they should. I hope they do. And I am so very lucky to have this love, the kind of love that inspires love stories. Prior to parenthood, we were each other's world, lifting one another up, facing the world together - us against the world. It is of that true love that my daughter is made. The love is humbling. And in it lies the heartbreaking truth, the sadness and the beauty of my experience of motherhood.
I have been loved by a most amazing man. That love generated another whole Being. Right now, I am my daughter's world. I am who, what, how and when. Her nourishment, physically through nursing;  mentally through singing the alphabet song and number song and counting and reading; emotionally through hugs, kisses, cuddles, nursing (again, its one powerful act). I can calm her, dress her, feed her, teach her faster, more completely and more easily than any other person on this planet. I am her world, she seeks me above all others, even daddy. And the heartbreak is knowing, I will love her more than she will ever love me. The sadness is knowing that one day she will go off to college and grow and learn outside of my influence. The beauty is I hope she finds a man (or woman) who will love her as her father loves me. I hope she too experiences the amazing gift of motherhood.
I've always considered myself a loving person. A little harsh, tough, and seemingly stoic, but loving all the same. I am awestruck at the sheer capacity for love my new mother's heart possesses. And I know someday that the big payout, the indication that I have been a good mother and done the job well is that my heart will be broken by the child who know holds my very breath.
You see, the hardest lesson for me was realizing that as I hold my precious baby girl in my arms, having carried her in my womb for 39 weeks, having nursed her til I chapped, nursed her to sleep, sacrificed my own comforts and sleep for her well being, cuddled her, taught her, sang to her, danced with her, loved her, and given myself to her - she is not mine. She is my daughter, she is of me, she was created by love, but she will never truly belong to me. As I never truly belonged to my mother. I belong to my daughter, and she belongs to her future - to her future children, to her future self, to her future spouse, but not to me, never to me.
For me, the hardest lesson is knowing that my most precious gift is not mine, she is only entrusted to me for a short time, to mold and protect, before her time comes to make her own discoveries. I love her more than she will ever love me. That is how it should be. For now, I will take every cuddle, every sloppy french kiss, every pinch and every giggle. I will hold these moments in my heart, knowing someday, it is these memories that will ease my broken heart as I let go and set free a love that was never quite requited. This is my hardest lesson. It is heartbreaking and beautiful. And I am so grateful for it all.

Holidays - Easter 2014

Ah, Holidays. 

I normally have a love / hate relationship with holidays. The rushing; the anticipation; the worrying about where, who, when and what; and the food. Food is good. Holiday food is better. Holiday food holds memories, traditions, and that certain specialness of being a once in a while food. It has that rare ability of tasting as good as you remember.

And then there is the meat stuffing. The meat stuffing has history. As in a hundred years of history. The recipe was brought here from Italy by my mother's father's mother, who learned it from her grandmother, and so on and so on. This stuffing, the recipe, is my inheritance, in many ways, my birthright. It is the dish that everyone looks forward to at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This stuffing stole my childhood as well. You see, for twenty some-odd years I would be in the kitchen, as the only granddaughter for my grandmother, having learned the recipe from her mother-in-law, to teach the recipe to. Every. Single. Year. Every year when my brothers would be occupied by football, whether playing or watching, I was in the kitchen working. I learned how to add the ingredients - how much of this, when to add that. And I wasn't taught the exact recipe and allowed to repeat it every year. No, my grandmother would send me out of the kitchen to go grab something else to put on the table - corn, bread rolls, soda, etc., and add ingredients unknown to the pot. Ingredients that I was not privy to until the year after and the year after that, slowly unfolding the magic of this recipe like a pirate's map that would only reveal its treasures after years of patience and perseverance in search of 'x' marks the spot. When I was 9, it was torture. Now, at 34, it is a treasure. It is a gift. One that was mine alone, entrusted to me to prepare every year with love for my family so that they can, through our heirloom dish, connect with our heritage. It took me over twenty years to learn and master this recipe. Is it no wonder I refuse to give it away? I have been asked for the recipe by well meaning sisters-in-law. I realize that they only want to prepare a dish for my brothers that will make them happy. But you see, my brothers were given a different gift. They were given football games and lazy mornings and exciting afternoons and lazy after dinner evenings. I was given the gift of knowledge. I do not hoard the recipe, I have invited my sisters-in-law to learn as I did, year after year. No note taking, no cheat cards, just doing, and they have not accepted my invitation. While I understand their point of view - "its just a recipe, just write it down so I can make it for your brother, it will make him happy"; what I have not been able to articulate properly is that the acting of cooking this stuffing is a way for me to reconnect with my grandmother, my great-grandmother and all the women from whom I come. This is my direct line to my ancestry, my brothers may enjoy it as they always did, and I get to remember those long days in the kitchen as a child, as a teenager and as a young woman, learning how to make the meat stuffing that I would one day learn to cherish for ever so much more than the ingredients I throw into the pan. 

I would teach my sisters-in-law or my brothers, happily. Though, this recipe no longer belongs to me. Now, it belongs to my niece and my daughter, should they choose to learn how to prepare it. You see, this knowledge is on loan to the current cook from future generations. It is a treasure, but one that is not easily won. It requires work, dedication and perseverance. The secret and beauty of this recipe is time. It is time in the kitchen with grandmothers, mothers and daughters, sharing secrets, sharing knowledge, revealing hopes and dreams, hugs, and yelling too (we're Italian, sometimes the most passionate of love can only be expressed at the top of our lungs!). I hope if my sisters-in-law or my brothers read this, it better explains why there is no way to jot down the ingredients and recipe to share. The meat stuffing is so much more than that. So, when my younger brother's wife requested the stuffing for Easter dinner (which we celebrated on Palm Sunday - don't ask) I was more than happy to oblige her request. Though completely off season as it is a harvest stuffing, it didn't matter, I was happy to provide a link to our ancestry. I made a few adjustments to make it more 'seasonal', but they aren't permanent. While I will not divulge any ingredients, I will however share a picture. Because as my grandmother would say and my mother always says "doesn't that look pretty!" 

Have a wonderful Easter if you celebrate. Happy Springtime!!! Green grass is upon us at last!