A Home For Haven

Nearly two weeks ago Duc sliced open his finger. Well, filleted is actually a better description. From below the first joint, across the joint and into the nail bed the blood gushed. I witnessed the accident and even with me sitting next to him the blood ran down his fingers into my cupped hand creating a puddle that I had to pour into the sink. I struggled to get him to the kitchen so I could wash the wound and examine it. He was bleeding so heavily I couldn't see the depth of his wound. After 10 minutes of pressure I called Michael to rescue us and I called my mom in tears while I waited.

Duc's wails punctuated my own tears as I told my mom how hard it was to see my son in pain. She told me it never got easier. Even seeing your adult children in pain tears a mother up.

I hung up and thought I'm not cut out for this.

It is hard to watch your child cry out in pain and worse to anticipate the pain and tears that will someday come.

Duc knows something is going on with me. As much as I try to hide my feelings and brighten up when we are together I am sure he senses something is off. He has been clingier than normal and today as I dropped him off for daycare he clung to me harder than he ever has before. He locked his little hands around my neck and did his best to do the same with his legs. It was like having a second layer of skin. It took two daycare employees to pull him off of me. When I looked back at him as I slipped out the door his arms were still out stretched as he screamed and cried. I cried all the way home.

While Duc and I attached to each either amazingly well, I know this is still a process and the next 2-3 weeks are going to be tough. I know the dependence he has on me and how anxious and desperate he becomes when I am not in eyesight. The daycare staff tell me he says "mommy" all day long. When my family sits with him they say the same. I can hear it when I use the bathroom at a restaurant and leave him with friends. While I know that all children go through stages where they need their mommies more, I also know his is slightly different. The need is something more.

Some day he is going to realize I wasn't the first mother and that the other one left.

I wonder if there will always be a little piece of him that is desperate--for her, for me, for something we can't give him. Someday he may realize, as I finally did, that those that love you can't always give you the kind of love you crave. It can't be found at the bottom of a bag of chips, in a beer or in a stranger's bed.

Watching this unfold brings back memories of my own childhood. I remember my mother dropping me off at another child's home and leaving me in a strange home without her. I remember watching the car pull away and the desperation I felt as I thought she's leaving me...again. I cried, I screamed and I wouldn't leave the window. I don't know if they were ever able to engage me in play or not--all I remember is the anguish I felt. I was 4.

Other mothers comfort me when they see me wrestling with him in public. The assure me that as he gets older it gets easier. I don't doubt he will follow direction better and not act so feral, but I don't imagine that motherhood ever truly gets easier. Not when you feel the pain of the little heart tied so closely to your own. Not when their pain is your pain.