Growing up in the sixties and seventies I would often watch my Mother prepare dinner. It would begin around three in the afternoon, after my sister and I had come home from school. As we were starting our homework, she was starting our dinner. The predictability was comforting.
You see, my Mother's passion was nurturing her family, mainly her husband. While we were at school, she was straightening the house and spending blissful hours shopping. Work was something she never experienced. Her big decisions of the day was picking out her menu for dinner which would often consist of a perfectly cut grapefruit for my Dad followed by a wedge of salad and tomato. Onto the main course which would often feature some kind of red meat, a baked potato and cooked vegetable. Desert would always be a fruit salad. Around nine in the evening there would be a snack. She would bring up a cup of tea to the bedroom along with a slice of cake, pie or cookies. This would end their day.
I remember how her eyes would light up in delight as she would explain her finds at the grocery store. Her description of fruit and vegetables were as detailed as if they were written by a poet. She would call the colors "nature's pallet". Those words stuck with me. I can't describe the feeling I get when I wash my summer fruit and put them in their respective bowels. The blue from the blueberries next to a display of perfectly ripe strawberries entice my senses.
The love and adoration my Mother had for my Father was something out of a fairytale. When he would enter a room, the rest of the world stopped. As a child I hated it. I felt betrayed and rejected. Wasn't she supposed to love me more?
The impression I had stayed with me. As I grew up, the very thought of following in my mother's footsteps, catering to a man actually repulsed me. I found it degrading. How could a woman know her worth if she put her husband first? Their came a time in my life when I had a hard time referring to the man I had married as my husband. That word made me sick, for it represented something that came between my mother's love and me. Don't get me wrong, my Father was equally obsessed with my Mother, so the wife word did the same.
As the years went on, my life changed drastically. I was a "wife" for many years. They were not happy times for I had lived in a loveless marriage. I hated any words that had to do with this union. All I had dreamed of was my freedom. I suppressed my ability to love, for it only represented pain and rejection, the kind I had felt as a child.
Presently, due to the death of my husband, I am single. We had separated a year prior to his death.
Now a strange transformation has taken place. I long for a life I never had. I crave being someone's wife. I dream about introducing someone as my husband. My new fantasies are all consumed with homemaking and nurturing this special man.
I want to cook and make a beautiful home for someone. I long for holiday dinners. My heart quickens with the thought of cuddling up in front of a fire and reading with the person I adore. Every love song is meant for me.
I've turned into someone I had desperately despised! I've searched for the meaning of this, as if it was some punishment for not understanding what love and passion meant.
I now believe that my Mother and Father did their best. There weren't any books on raising children with strong self-worth. They didn't know that their strong commitment to each other would make their children feel rejected.
By understanding this, it has opened me up to letting love into my life. I now want it all. I want to be adored and have the ability to adore someone back with the same intensity.
My daughters are grown, I don't have to worry about their self-worth, for they had been given complete love from their Mother. I've taught them to never lose themselves in the loving of someone else. Their self-love must come first. Above all, they need to raise their own strong children with the knowledge of love.