it takes a village…
My daughter recently asked me why I chose to be a mother. This came shortly after my idiotic confession to her that when she and her brother were little I used to make up excuses to avoid going to toddler birthday parties. What can I say? I don’t like screaming, or runny noses, or squabbling children, or food fights.
The truth is, I didn’t consciously make the decision to be a mother. It was never on any to-do list. Like marriage, it just sort of snuck up on me. And, like everything else that has befallen me in this lifetime, despite being completely unprepared and ill-equipped for the task, I managed to make my way through the motherhood maze through sheer dumb luck.
I have never been a “collector”, and I feel a strange un-ownership to most things in my life (except my fleecy crocs – never touch my fleecy crocs). This is perhaps why Kahlil Gibran’s words about children resonate so strongly within me: ” Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you” (from The Prophet). I only recently discovered that Mr Gibran never actually sired or raised any darlings of his own. I wonder whether that experience would have changed his outlook at all.
I confess, quietly, that much of the past eighteen years of motherhood remains a blur. But I do remember the many moments when I was stopped dead in my tracks by something one of my offspring said or did, and the realisation that as long as I could keep them safe (please God), they would become who they were meant to be, despite my parenting inadequacies.
My son now resides in small-town Canada, where he is living the dream he (and most little Canadian boys) had as a five-year old…to be a hockey player. This despite his parents’ absolute lack of guidance, and complete hockey cluelessness. I drove up to visit him this weekend, since I haven’t seen him in a while. After the game, waiting for my ‘little boy’ amidst the crowds of people, the town kids lining up for autographs, the pretty girls wearing their favourite players’ jerseys, these “strangers” who all know my son, it struck me that it really does take a village to raise a child. And I suddenly realised, with overwhelming humility, that my children are who they are, in large part because of the incredible communities through which my family and I have passed over the years. Their schools and teachers. Their neighbourhoods. Their friends. Their sports teams and coaches. And in my son’s case, the incredibly generous billet families who have opened their homes, their hearts, and their lives to him. They have not only fed him, and provided him with a roof over his head; they have encouraged him during his disappointments, cheered him on in his triumphs, and most importantly, shown him how the generosity of strangers can help you achieve your dreams . They all are responsible for his growth, his character, his success as a player, and as a human being.
Kahlil is right. My children do not belong to me. If there is any belonging at all, it is to these fantastic villagers who have nurtured, inspired, and loved them, expecting nothing in return. The road ahead, if he is lucky, is still a long and hard one. And there will in all likelihood be many twists and turns along the way. He is, after all, only eighteen. But what he has already accomplished is quite astounding, and the pride I feel as I watch all these boys on the ice, standing tall as ‘Oh Canada’ fills the arena, or pumping their fists in unbridled joy when a teammate scores a goal, is surpassed only by my gratitude for the many superb human beings who have collaborated to make this possible. I thank and salute you from the bottom of my immigrant heart.
xoxo
