When Lily was born, she was the best thing to ever happen to me in my life up to that point. I love her in ways that I didn't even know existed because I had never felt so loved. One wants to give one's children things they missed in their childhoods and often it seems that it is the material things that are most considered. But I want Lily to feel loved. Every day. And not because she does the things I want her to, but just because I love her. I want her to feel a sense of herself and her place in the scheme of things in life. And to believe that she is capable of anything. I know that it is my job to guide her in this discovery and it is here that I think I am failing her.
Seriously. This is not a plea for people to tell me what a good mother I am. I am a good mother. But I can see that my struggle is taking its toll on my little girl and that makes me feel horrible. As tough as this move has been for me, Lily has been with me the entire time, watching, waiting, hoping that I was going to be okay. I can see it in her big brown eyes. She wants me so badly to be the woman I was before we left New York for ports unknown. I want to be also.
I watched her singing at her graduation from Blossoms and she was so sweet and innocent and shy. She kept checking for me at the back of the room where I was rocking a diapered, but unclothed Virginie on one hip and taking photos with my free hand. I was waving at her, blowing kisses, smiling, welling up with tears. My baby was graduating from nursery school and I couldn't have loved her more. I hope she could see in my eyes how special she is to me and not the sad, mopey monster I have become as each day passes here.
Lily loves Barbados and the friends she has made here, many of whom will go on to St. Gabriel's with her. It is so sad to me that on this, we cannot see eye to eye. I know that going back home will return her to a small apartment or a house in the suburbs, yikes, outside the city. I know that going back home presents us with the financial challenge of providing her with a good primary education given the state of many US public schools and the cost of the private. I know that both she and Virginie will lose their private garden and their sense of freedom wandering around and discovering nature in their own backyard. But I also know, that my children shouldn't have to live with an emotionally and spiritually stunted mother. In the long run, they are better in a small corner loved completely than running around with ample space and feeling emptiness in their hearts. The worst gift I can leave them with as they graduate through life is a sense that they were not loved enough. That would break my heart and leave one more notch on the belt of Barbados for the destruction of my life and family.
(c)copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle
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