She took cold baths

You know how once and a while you will have a huge epiphany that changes everything about how you conceive the world as a whole? I've had my fair share of those lately...and, for those interested, I'm going to share one of them.

My mother and I have always 'gotten along'. We love each other, and truly as daughter and mother can, but have never really understood each other. Rather, I think we spent a great deal of our time trying to figure out the other one and being frustrated that we were never really able to. There were, of course, times were my mom saw right through me- understood me better than anyone else on the planet- but I think the times where I totally mystified her outnumber these considerably.

This is mostly my fault- as those of you who know me well know, I am an incredibly guarded person. I don't allow anything that I don't want to be seen to be seen. I choose the images that I portray carefully and don't deal with vulnerability very well at all. I deceive people into thinking that my life is an open book by giving them stupid minor details about everyting that isn't important and tell them nothing of what is really going on in my head. There are very few people that I trust implicitly with all of who I am. I believe that I will die alone, and unlike most people, take great comfort in that.

Please do not misinterpret this as my being unhappy. I am rather pleased with my life- I have wonderful friends, a fabulous family and I have passion- something I would not trade for the world- for a wide variety of different things. This is what keeps my heart beating. I am, in essence, at peace with who I am and how I go about life. I know that I'm not perfect, and I'm okay with that.

But I digress- I was talking about my mother. In the past few years, my mother and i have fought a lot. Well, that's not exactly fair. We've fought a lot for us- which, I imagine, compared to most families, is not a lot at all. Most of these were my mom not understanding my psyche- my emotions, my mind frame, my wavelengths. By the same token, I never really understood hers either.

In order to understand the rest of the post, a little background is necessary. When I was young, I suffered a tragedy- the details of which are unimportant- that altered my life forever. I never spoke of it to my family and it only became public many years later, when I had no choice but to confess what I had lived. My mother, and brother for that matter, were angry that I had never shared before. I was angry that they didn't know that something had been wrong for years. And that was the status quo for a very long time. In truth, I know that the vast majority of the blame for these arguments falls to me. But it needs to be said that I was very young and did what I thought I had to do.

All that being said, there has been friction for the past few years due to this newly revealed information. My family never really grasped the depths of what I had informed them of. I had never really understood just how important my choice to lie was- just how it affected the rest of the events. But I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately, and I think I'm starting to get it.

Anyway, back to the real story- so I have just reached an epiphany on my mom. As trite as it sounds, this epiphany is that my mother loved me- unconditionally and more deeply than what I can ever imagine. She did so sacrificially- gave up her life so that Antoine and I might live our own. She gave everything she had so that we would want for nothing. She was both mother and father- and was, for the past 28 years, mother before all else.

Now, these are all statements that "knew" to be true- but it's different to know something and to understand it. And I think I understand that now- all thanks to a memory that came back to me in a dream.

You see, we had suffered a pretty brutal divorce- which isn't uncommon. When we moved, we moved into a relatively old house. Like many old houses, the hot water tank left much to be desired. There wasn't enough hot water for the three of us to shower in the morning. My entire family is very water-happy. We love our baths, our showers, our lake, etc. So my mother would wake before my brother and I, and take her bath, followed by Antoine and followed by me.

Sometimes the hot water would run out, just as my shower was ending. This irritated me to no extent. But it didn't happen often. It never occured to me that it should have been a daily occurance. After all, I was just a kid. But one morning, I woke up earlier than usual. I went into the washroom and noticed that my mom's bath had been drawn. There was, maybe, 6 inches of water in the tub, and it was barely lukewarm! The faucet was still running, which meant that the water hadn't had a chance to cool. I put my hand in and it was cold to my touch. It occured to me then that my mother took cold baths in order to ensure that my brother and I had warm showers. This would always stay with me- but I would never truly understand its depth until now.

As years past, this trend changed. My mother started waking at 5 am in order to "watch the news" (which I am convinced meant "take a warm bath"). But the memory of that cold bathtub haunts me to this day. You see, to a 10 year old kid- who would get pissed because of the hot water running out in the last minute of her 20 minute shower- this was the ultimate sacrifice. Forget about the long hours she worked to support two children alone. Forget about the long trips into Peace River for hockey, dance, swimming competitions. Forget about the money spent on my singing career or on Antoine's Tae Kwon Do. Forget about never dating so that we wouldn't have to deal with the integration of a new father figure into our household (things had gone horribly wrong with my stepmother- and we both knew that remaining single was a very deliberate decision on my mom's part). All of these, though they would seem far more prominent, impacted me less than that cold bath. It was only then that I could visualize and tangibly understand what it meant to be a single mother.

As I contemplate my own future- being a mother, being a career woman, being an "adult"- I carry with me this image of my mother. It makes all of our past arguments seem so silly, so futile in the grand scheme of things. I wish I could take back some of my harsh words. I wish I could go back and tell her the truth from the start. I wish I had understood back then what that cold bath meant, and offered to shower at night instead. I wish that I had been born with the heart of a mother so as to understand just how hard it was for her.

I am so grateful for my mother. She is my guide, my role model and the center of my world. We argue- it happens. But she and I having been doing some talking lately, and I have a strong suspicion that the bulk of these arguments are over. I look forward to entering into a new, adult relationship with her- where she will be more than a mother and a friend. She will be a human being, fallible and forgivable. And I will be more than a child- I too will be a human being, fallible and capable of forgiveneness and determined not to make the same mistakes again.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime- jamais je ne t'oublierais.

Zita