You Made It, Whatever It Is

Every year a mother ages she loses somthing like a billion brain cells. Where do brain cells go when they die? I'll tell you where they go. They turn into cellulite and live in your butt. Look in the mirror. If you have a really big butt chances are, at one time, you were a very smart woman.
You gave birth eighteen years ago to the sweetest green-eyed baby in the whole  world. He refused to sleep, but you didn’t care. You were in love. You struggled through nursing, and you learned how to navigate your sleep deprived world, and that baby’s birth was the closest you'd ever come to touching the face of God. He was your first, so you didn’t know how tough you had it until the next baby was born, and that one slept. Then you had two babies to manage, and it was a good thing that the second one was placid, because the first one was like a maggot on a hot rock.
The babies got older, and it didn’t get any easier, and then you went and got pregnant again. When the third baby was born the oldest was two and a half, and you had three children in diapers and a baby on each boob. Fissures opened in your brain. Things that would have been effortless to remember three years before slipped through gaping crevices in your memory, gone forever. The oldest, the one with undiagnosed ADD, began climbing kitchen cabinets, and learned how to jimmy locks, and possessed a high mechanical aptitude for dismantling things: toys, radios, back porches.
Then one day when you were in the kitchen fixing lunch, and the baby was in a swing, and the middle child was seated on the floor stacking blocks, you realized there was a disturbing silence in the space where the oldest should have been, so you dropped what you were doing and ran through the house calling his name, and he answered, but you couldn’t find him. “Mama!” he called from some distant place. “Mama!” You panicked, yelled his name, screamed “Where are you?” You raced upstairs, destroyed the closet, pulled everything out from under the bed. You heard him but you couldn’t find him to save your life. In the moment you thought your head might detach from your shoulders, holding fistfuls of hair, you stood in the room and screamed his name one more time. That’s when you saw tiny fingers gripping the windowsill, from the outside. He was right there all along, waiting for you to pull him to safety. Silly woman.
You're glad God didn’t reveal what you were getting into ahead of time. If you’d known about the near misses, the grip of absolute panic, the gaping fear, the feel of your heart stopping and then laboriously resuming its steady rhythm, you might not have gotten into this mess of motherhood.  But last week, as you were sitting in that sultry auditorium, the strains of Pomp and Circumstance filling the air, you forgot about all that. There he was, cleaned up, freshly shaven, wearing a tie, topped off with a mortar board, and your heart filled up like it did the day he was born. He had those same astonishing green eyes, as big as the world, a dashing almost-man smile, and a high school diploma in his hot little fist. You wipe away tears of joy, rumminate for a moment on the travails of the last eighteen years, and thank God in heaven above that you made it, that he made it, and that from here on he can’t possibly make any more messes. Then you stand, smooth your slacks over your great big butt, and applaud. Silly woman.

Comments

[Chris]

Wow-I will be in your shoes next June. I already look at the boys (I have 3) and wonder how they got so old when I haven't aged a day. I have a very similar story about boy#2 and a second story hallway, child hanging on spindle ready to plunge onto the corner of a table on the first floor-that day was my first gray hair-many more have since arrived. Chris

[Mary]

Great job again, Cyn! You make it all seem so present. Whenever you get through the Dante's Inferno Seven Circles of Publishing Hell, I'm off to Borders to buy that book, magazine, whatever.

[Mel]

I love your writing . . . and my butt isn't big (really), so uh, my brain cells are intact? Is that how it works? ;)

[char]

Silly woman indeed! I love reading your blog--it's so lyrical and unabashedly honest. Thank you!

[MotherPie]

Ain't that the truth!!! Except here I am with gray hairs and feeling I earned them all.
And I didn't have to tell her to "go get in line, go GET in line, GO GET IN LINE."
I just sat back and watched...
Cheers.

[jennifer]

goosebumps, silly woman. i'm covered in them.

[Marianne]

Great post!

[msdemmie]

Brilliant post - I have two years to wait for my daughters graduation from Uni - the other two took different paths.

One thing I do know know for certain is my eye wont be dry and I will be packing the kleeenex.

[Shelly]

You are such a good writer. And funny! You should try a novel. I'm no expert, just a reader, but you write better than I see on about 90% of all blogs.

[christa]

LOL...you're probably right about the braincells. I've never thought about it that way before, but yeah...they do go quickly after a while :p

[Pugs]

Ha!Ha!Ha!
Love it about the brain cells, but could you tell me where abouts they go on a Guy's body?
Must be the bellie.. although I thought that was caused from drinking too much beer!
You've got me thinking now..lol

[Karen]

I just had my oldest graduate, too. he kept asking why I was crying- gosh, now I'm crying again. thought maybe I was passed it!

[Jazz Coffee]

Brain cells going to your
butt,very interesting.lol
Blogmad hit! stop by for a
visit adnd a good laugh.

[Ma Titwonky]

Outstanding!

Yep, I've got the big butt and the missing brain cells. Both my kids have graduated so I feel it's important to let you know that the thing about messes? They can still make 'em.

[angie]

Thanks for making me cry! :)

Love this post!

My oldest, a girl, will be graduating in 3 years.