It's OK, Mama

The other day, while reading a book I came across this question, “If there were only a few days left of your life, what would you be doing?” Easy peasy- spend time with the kids only, say bye-bye to blogging/ writing. It’s not as if I can make an impact in a few days.

“Stop knocking on my door. I’ll open it when I am done here.” I roared. Yes, yes I’d still want to spend all the time with them.

Winter vacation nights are pure bliss. We get to snuggle in bed, eat peanuts, and just talk our time away- or just till I have had enough. But, today I had excruciating pain in my left leg. It took an awful effort to sit down, so we settled down quickly, the kids and me.

My eldest, knowing I was in pain, started massaging, and comforting me. “It’s ok, mama. I have had similar pain; it went away in two days.”

I bolted upright to attention.

“When? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“I did. You just snapped at me that I don’t drink enough milk.”

“What? Why can’t I seem to remember?” I am flabbergasted.

“Well it was around Eid-ul-Azha, we had our cousins over.”

“Did I send you to school?” I tried twisting over to face her, but couldn’t due to the pain.

“No, it was the weekend.”

Oh, I breathed a sigh of relief.

My daughter was still massaging my leg.

“Was it very painful?”

“It was. I couldn’t sleep well that night.”

A sharp jab of pain rose in my heart.

I looked at my nine-year-old, going back to the time when she was still a baby and how I would comfort her on her every wail. How could I have turned so insensitive to her now?

“I am so sorry, guriya, I didn’t realize your pain.”

“It’s ok, mama. It went away.”

“And with it the time to bond over that pain with you.” my heart muttered.

And then I remembered those days. I was super busy. There was Eid, we had guests rather, kids, staying over at our place, my hubby was out of town, so there was hardly any moment of peace. I remember mixing Vitamin D med in her milk, and yes, snapping at her for not sleeping enough, and drinking milk.

What I don’t remember is my daughter comforting herself, my baby curling up into a ball to put herself to sleep, my little girl deflecting her persistent cousins and siblings for a moment of peace.

Oh, what a horrible thought for a mom.

Too often we get caught up in the vicious cycle of our overstuffed agendas and to-do tasks. Our best interests at heart are, of course, we are doing all this for our children. But, seriously who are we kidding? We make meaningless interactions with our children thus trivializing their problems, while we must tick off that all-too-important item on our list. We always hustle through our days never pausing to just look in our children’s eyes.

Our children don’t need a gourmet meal or a home straight out of a House Beautiful magazine. These are things we think, we want or people expect from us. (Remember, it was Eid, with a house full of guests.)

Our children want to be seen, heard, and valued and to know that they are important and that they matter.

Two takeaways from this incident for me:

• I just need to pause, be grateful for the gift that is my children, and tells them so.

• I don’t need to give up something which has helped me clarify my perspective on life; my writings. What I definitely do need to give up is the notion that busy equals a better mom.

So yeah, if I had only a few days left of my life I’d definitely want to spend most with my kids and some just contemplating, reflecting, and writing.