I have decided to share some of my English Comp assignments as blogs, enjoy.
Becoming My Mother
"One day you'll have a child of your own, and then you will understand." My mother told me this countless times, and my response was the universal adolescent eye-roll. At the time I had no idea that my mother was truly wiser than me. I was young, therefore I knew everything. It's a shame it took me more than twenty years to discover how little I actually knew.I remember telling my mother "When I have children I won't make them fetch things for me", like my purse or the phone, "just because they are younger and have more energy". After all, she should have catered to my every need, I was the child and she was the parent. I also had it in my mind that my mother was overprotective merely because I was an only child, surely other parents didn't fret as much as my mother. I wouldn't be one of those worrisome, overprotective types. I just couldn't understand why she cried when I got stitches; it wasn't like she was the one getting sewn back together like a torn rag doll. And I couldn't believe her nerve the time she said "This is going to hurt me more than you". Was she insane? I was the one with the red bottom when it was over with, yet she was the one trying to hide the tears welling up in her eyes. I didn't understand why she always asked so many questions and was so involved in my life, other parents weren't like that, or at least I didn't think they were.
Then it happened. I became a mother. I gave birth to my own child. I looked into those squinty little eyes placed perfectly on that wrinkled, misshapen head, and in that moment I realized that my heart had been ripped from my body, and placed in my arms. It was exposed, out there for the whole world to see. I had to protect it from being broken. It was now my place to be that worrisome, overprotective mother. It was my turn to cry over his little boo-boos. It was my turn to ask too many questions, "Where are you going? Who will you be with? When will you be home? Will there be adults there?"
Four years later, I gave birth again. As I was standing with one hand strategically placed to keep from being peed on by my beautiful new exposed heart, and the other hand just inches away from the diaper I so desperately needed, I called my oldest child into my bedroom from the living room. "Hand me that diaper" I said. His four year old wheels started turning, he rolled his little eyes, and said with astonishment as he handed me the diaper, "You made me miss Sponge Bob for that?" I'm sure he saw the look of shock on my face. Little did he know it wasn't from his sassy question, but instead, it was in that moment that it hit me, I was becoming my mother!
Over the next five years I would bring into this world two more children. I was given the great blessing of these four amazing little boys to nurture into responsible, caring men. At the same time, I was given the burden of motherhood; it was my duty to do all I could to protect them, my hearts that were now living outside of my own body. It was my job to worry, and to ask too many questions. It was their job to roll their eyes and, of course, fetch me things. As the days go by, I see more and more how I have become my mother. In fact just last summer, my son didn't understand why I cried as hard as him when he had his nose broken by a baseball bat. He questioned my tears, and I told him "One day you'll have a child of your own, and then you will understand."
