Fierce Love

I’ve told you a lot about my dad. Today’s story is about my mom and a New Year’s Eve more than thirty years ago. But first, a little background. My mom had my brother, sister and me in the late 1950s and early 60s, when a lot of women didn’t breastfeed — the prevailing wisdom being that formula was best. By the time my son was born, that wisdom had done a one-eighty. I nursed my son and all my friends nursed their kids.

From the moment my mom met her grandson — just hours after he was born — she fell for him with the kind of thundering impact usually reserved for lightning strikes. Every coo, every glance, every burp was discussed and dissected like it was breaking news. He was so beautiful, so obviously brilliant, so clearly superior to every other baby.

In those early weeks, I spent hours at my parents’ house. We shared the diapering, the holding, the pacing-the-floor soothing. But not the feeding. I wasn’t working, so it was easy for me to breastfeed exclusively.

When my son was about three months old, my husband and I decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve with dinner out for the first time, leaving my parents to babysit. This was before cell phones, so our date night meant we were truly on our own. And so were my folks.

We came home a couple hours later and found our son asleep in my mom’s arms, looking like a Renaissance cherub. But the evening had not been smooth. He’d cried — not the polite kind. What started as sniffles escalated to sobs then deep, determined howls, making his rib cage shimmy like a hula dancer.

Mom had tried everything: the bottle of pumped milk I left, the pacifier, diaper changes, rocking, shushing, a bath,miles of pacing the hundred square feet of the family room. No relief.

And then, out of ideas and nearly out of hope, she sat down, lifted her shirt, undid her bra and offered him the chance to nurse.

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You may be thinking a woman who last gave birth several decades ago is not going to satisfy a hungry three-month-old. In all likelihood, this probably frustrated him even more. And you’d be right, technically. It didn’t work.

But I was dumbstruck. My mom’s love was not practical. Not logical. It was fierce and irrational. An I-would-try-anything-for-you kind-of-love.

I wrapped my arms around my mom and thanked her for loving him so completely.

I lost my mom about eight years ago. She spent the last twenty-four years of her life fiercely loving her grandchildren — and they loved her right back.

My mom inspired two characters in my novel, Missed You the First Time. She is the DNA behind Dani’s mom (opinionated and judgmental) and the soul of Bea (generous and grandchild-obsessed). Looking back at that New Year’s Eve, I can see both women in her: the one who knew exactly how things 'should' be done, and the one who would break every rule for love.

I’m thinking about her a lot today. I hope your new year is filled with warm recollections of the people you’ve loved — and the people who have loved you. ​