Am I a Mother-in-Love?

I think about that role a lot

I have an inborn need to connect to people

I want very badly to be a successful mother to our beautiful children

raising them to be passionate, contributing, giving and happy people.

After the death of my first child all I wanted was life

I wanted children so much that it hurt

Anyone who has endured loss knows what grief feels like

Anyone who has struggled with infertility knows what yearning feels like.

Having lost a child and having struggled with infertility the blessing of children was and is very sweet

yet/and children grow up and become their own people.

We encourage them to be independent free thinkers

We share our values

We love freely and unconditionally

We want the best for them

We take the role of responsibility very seriously

We struggle to withdraw ourselves to allow them to thrive and

when they do we feel successful

we feel happy

we feel fulfilled

We pray that our children will be loved and find meaning in their lives and their relationships

We let them go and hopefully

we walk with them down the aisle,

dancing down to the chuppah, which represents their new home.

The cleaving of our child to another is a loss and a gain

On one level we lose them,

we move them forward into the future with another by their side

My inborn instinct is to continue to mother my child yet after marriage they are intimately connected to another and that is and should be their primary relationship

My role as their mother is less defined

It seemed so easy when they were little and needed us for everything

We cuddled and took care of everything.,

held them when they cried and kissed their bonked heads

With age we became more of the ‘director’

guiding and helping

Then they truly become independent and make their own thoughtful decisions

we can’t protect them any more

we don’t really know what their inner life is

we can’t solve all their problems

we can’t make the struggles of life go away

we also can’t ignore that sometimes life is hard

The best we can do is get in the trenches and hold them

lovingly

silently

there is much comfort in being present and available and continuing to unconditionally love in the face of not being able to ‘fix’ the problems

When our child gets married our role is to support their new relationship

to affirm their choice

to love the new child

to leave space

to m’tzamtzem ( tzimtzum)- withdraw to make space for another

to give

to love

to trust them

to be silent

Silence existed before the world was created- before words,

maybe in that place of silence we can hear the voice of others.

The goal is connection and relationship

Our in-law child is new and has come from a different family dynamic and yet

more than anything we all want acceptance and love

It cuts both ways

When my mother died shortly after the death of our child I didn’t want a replacement mother

My mother-in-law is generous and loving,

she is affirming and praising yet

I was so bereft of my own mother that her love fell on deaf ears

I wanted my mother

I wanted her so badly

I wanted her to praise me, tell me I was great and that my children were great,

that she loved what I was becoming and who I was

yet she was gone

fading into memory

my life lay before me without her.

I resisted being sad

I had grieved my child which was completely and totally exhausting

the last thing I wanted was more grief

I wanted joy and life and laughter and sun

Ones family is like a cluster of grapes- all bunched on one stem going through life together

let’s seize the moments

let’s live life fully

let’s not sweat the small stuff

let’s focus on what’s important

let go

sing and

silently let it flow

May Gd shower us with the strength to create the relationships that we want with each other,

ones that are loving, affirming, respectful, kind and positive