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Generations
Aug. 27th, 2006 12:39 pmI am sitting at my mothers listening to her and Katina play in the bathtub. It's interesting how different people handle changes in their relationship with their parents as they get older.
I'm thinking specifically about what appears to be resentment that I see in my sister in how mom now relates to the grandchildren. I see her behaving in a way that demonstrates jealousy to me that mom is trying to have a fun, caring, imaginative and creative relationship with the grandchildren, that she never ever had with us.
For me, I see this time as a gift that I can give to my mother. I have no sense of loss or resentment that she never played this way with me as a child. She was a single mother in a time when it wasn't ok to be a single mother. She was the oldest child of 7 children and went from an environment of emotional uncertainty as a child and young woman into a marriage with an alcholic. It took courage and stregnth for her to begin to find her own life in an effort to be a better parent than her parents were to her. And while there are still unhealthy patterns and I can point things NOW that she could have done better when we are kids, I can also see that she did the best she could.
I give her now, not my anger or frustration at what she "couldn't" be as a parent for me, and smile as I listen to her be that parent NOW as a grandparent to my daughter. The laughter, the imagination and the games and smiles are there. I know that it hurts her when Katina runs to me with all her hugs and resists hugging her at times...but I also watch the pure ecstasy that crosses her face when Katina runs a full speed up the hill to fly into her arms when she first sees her.
As an adult, doing what it is that I do. I recognize that my own sadness that this wasn't a relationship that WE could have together, is more than eclipsed by the relationship my own child has with this strong, caring woman. My mother is not perfect but she is a work in progress and always will be, as are we all.
What saddens me, is that my sister appears to be unable to open herself to experience pleasure in her children's relationship with their grandmother. Instead, when they express joy at an experience with Grandma, my sister appears tp attempt to copy that and make it her own, rather than building separate joys and pleasures. I worry about my niece and nephew, who struggle to find peace and unadultered joy in playing with me or their grandmother, but appear to constantly ask themselves "is it ok for me to smile". I would give anything, to give them the pure safety, unadultered FREEDOM to be young that I work so hard to give to my own child.
I know this is all my own perspective, and that which is coloured by my mother's perspective and observations, and expressed sadness. I recognize that I truly don't know what my sister experiences or how she perceives the world. I know that. Yet I am not ready to share with her what I see and ask her to share with me what she experiences. That is a level of intimacy with my sister that I neither want, but that I actually fear. I wonder why that is.
