Last night after my
mother called to make birthday plans, I hung up the phone in the
living room where I sat in the leather recliner, buried my head in
my hands and wept. Why is it, at age 54, I am still affected this
way?
A phrase clamors
through my head like the incessant beeping of a smoke alarm: I
don't want to take care of my mother on my birthday.
Here's how the
dynamic unfolds. My mother calls to ask me what I want to do, where
I want to go and what time or date. I respond with suggestions that
she refutes until it's clear that this is a game: Is the prize
behind door No. 1, door No. 2, or door No. 3?
Sooner or later I
manage to guess what she wants me to do, where she wants to go and
when. I relax and accommodate. But on this birthday, I refuse to
accommodate. I have real preferences, and I'm not willing to
relinquish them.
"You're sounding
depressed," Mom says over the phone.
"I know. I need to
get off the phone." By this time I'm wondering why I was stupid
enough to think anyone would willingly sacrifice or accommodate for
my birthday. How humiliating to think this year might be
different!
And yet, it's unfair
to put this on my mother. She called with the best of intentions.
She heard me say I'd like to go to Shakertown for a December
afternoon tea. Then she made several long distance calls to check
out other options I'd mentioned. But whenever I stated my
preferences on the phone—"Mom, I want to go on Saturday."—she’d
forget and talk of going on Sunday. And when I settled on a date,
Dec. 15, when my daughter, Sarah, would be home and could join us,
my mother balked for five minutes, arguing, "Isn't Saturday the 16th?"
and then remembered she'd agreed to work that day.
SLAM! Ha! Had you
fooled again. You thought this birthday thing was about you,
right?
All I want is an
uncomplicated birthday!
A reasonable woman
would not get so upset, I tell myself, sniveling like a 7-year-old.
My mother is too old to learn new tricks. She doesn't mean to upset
me; she's genuinely trying to help. Why can't I be patient and nice
and do whatever's easiest for her?
As I pour
lavender-scented bath bubbles into the tub, it comes to me afresh:
"I'm tired of taking care of my mother on my birthday." How hard I
worked over the years to make sure she felt amply awarded for her
efforts—"Mom, this sweater is perfect! It's exactly the right color.
I can't wait to wear it with my red plaid skirt." For most of my
life, I wouldn't have known if I didn't like something she gave me,
because her taste and preferences had become my own. Growing up, I
didn't make birthday lists, as I could never identify what it was I wanted. I wanted whatever my mother wanted.
Was my mother so
alone in her longings, so unheard and invisible, that she required a
daughter's mirroring to validate her self-worth? I suspect I'm onto
something here. Who would have noticed her backbreaking labor to
cook well-balanced meals, attend school meetings and settle
squabbles between my brother and me? Who would have cared?
Still, I want
something this year. I want a field trip with my adult daughters.
And in this wanting, I've forgotten my childhood mandate: "Take care
of your mother. Make her feel good. Pull her up from the same
depression that threatens you. Reassure her she exists—that you need
and appreciate her, that she's all you ever desired in a mother.
Redeem her sense of loss, confusion and helplessness on this one
special day. Surely you can afford to do that."
And so I do.
My mother's birthday,
Jan. 8, and mine, Dec. 10, are competitions. Yearly, she comments,
her tone one of awe and jealousy intermixed, "How many times did you
celebrate your birthday this year?"
Our birthdays are
also a pact, a solemn oath enacted year after year of our undying
loyalty to one another: we will take care of one another, make sure
we're never forgotten and rescue one another from oblivion.
Some year soon, my
mother will not call to ask me what I want for my birthday, and my
heart will rend in two.
She's the one who
never forgets me.
