how to love

If you've ever benefited from my love, thank my mom.  She taught me how to love.

She was 19 when she birthed me.  It was long ago, I explained to my young friend--back then, they took the babies away immediately.  So she birthed me, some medical person whisked me away to do stuff to me, and she was wheeled into a different room, where someone served her lunch.  Then she watched tv--a soap opera.  I think it was All My Children.

Oh, Mama.  Grieving is a lot of work.

Yesterday I had some moments of deep realization of what it means to live without her.  It was pure horror.  How could I even do that.  I've been doing it for more than three months.

Sometimes I'm ok.  I ask Ming things like, "Who ever thought of death?  I should go find them and hurt them."  I tell Ming things like, "Death is the stupidest thing I ever heard of," muttering it after lunch or while looking through the mail he just handed me.  Death is a mystery I could avoid until I couldn't.

Holidays seem like spells now, of people who are trying to keep reality from changing, trying to keep death from its nasty subtraction.  We will pretend things will always be this way.  We'll do the traditions and laugh that death has to wait a bit longer.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, and even birthdays were really too much.  I always daydreamed about how to tone them down.  I have my wish now, dagnabbit.  We went rogue.  On Christmas, Ming and I went to the hot springs.

If God was mean, she would ask me, how do you like being able to do whatever you want?  But that's my imagination making a joke.  God isn't mean--she sent my mom to teach me how to love.  I know God is kind.

When my therapist asked me how I survived, I immediately told her it's because I don't like drugs.  It's just chance.  If I liked drugs, I would be dead or in the gutter.  Anxiety is the great problem of my peeps, and drugs is the great problematic solution.

But I thought about it more and realized I survived because I know how to love.  My mom knew how to feel, connect, be vulnerable, and care.  She cared automatically, immediately.  All that I do, came from her.

She carried me around like a football.  She kissed my little baby feet.  She talked to me endlessly.   I don't remember this happening, on the coast, but there are stories and pictures, young teenager Mama looking so proud in a photo from the 1970s.

Mistakes were definitely made, but some mistakes are worse than others.  I accept her mistakes--maybe that's forgiveness.

Well, this is enough.  I've kissed some nice ladies in my life.  Thank you to all the ladies I've kissed and not kissed, all the moms and non-moms, and everyone of every gender and non-gender who nurtures.