Warrior Mothering

I am on a healing path. I am a mother, and I will put that first. I brought my three year old to Starbuck’s the other day for our “dates.” We go and have coffee, well, I have coffee and he asks for chocolate milk and the biggest cookie there is. We sit and hang out, we talk about colors, Star Wars, the merits of bigger cookies. When I was three I was afraid to walk through our den because I felt embarrassed that my Dad would have a porno on. My child lives in a world that may as well be in another galaxy. I can’t help thinking this as he mows through his cookie. He walks through our living room, same age, same innocence, same vulnerability, and his worst nightmare is broccoli, two nights in a row. “No Bock-EEE!” The contrast is sharp, I see me walking averting my eyes from my father’s perversions and thus learning I had better just avert myself from my rights as a child, and Dylan walks in on the kingpin of all his misery, the green monster known as broccoli. It’s so stark in comparison it’s just about existential. I giggle at the images. I giggle because he is so gorgeous and free, and because he reminds me of who I was, gorgeous but not free. His intense stare awakens the feeling of the wildest freedom in my chest. It’s like he tells me with his green blue stare, YOU ARE FREE, like me, Mama.
I am free, now. In a café, getting him milk, drinking coffee, wiping his sweet mouth thinking of the amazing things that will come from them, the big words, the knock knock jokes already emerging. I feel pride in taking tender care of this delicate flower that is my child, checking with him to be sure he is comfortable, does he need to potty, does he know he is seen, not only seen, but heard, and that he is visible on a soul level? Doe she know I truly SEE him for the gift he is? I practice folding him into me, like a seedling in the garden of his mother, pressing firmly, covering, softly watering, I think of how I could never leave him. I think of his face frozen to the window, his marrow aching with a savage hot grief. His body wracked with searing pain, a child ripped from his mother, in my case, by the mother herself.
Not this child, and not this mother. I see you, Dylan, I see INTO you, around you, I FEEL you, all over, You are so seen, so loved, so known, so precious. I SEE you, you exist to me, you are beautiful, free, and never, never, never invisible, especially the essence of you. Small innocent hands, vanilla skin, wispy blonde hair, blue oceanic eyes, open heart. Your laugh, your tenacity in expressing yourself, anger, joy, love. Those nights I secretly look forward to when I hear Feet on the Hardwood Floor, patter patter, crossing the house, thump thump, over the carpet, on the clock red numbers equals midnight, "Mama, mama, I want Moop." (Moop is milk)
Never invisible, seen, heard, felt, in every direction, on every level. So is my other child.
And the ones inside me, too.
We are coming out of the dark, into the light.....love to all. SES