It Doesn't Matter...

Yesterday I sobbed.

I know, for those of you that know me pretty well, this is nothing out of the ordinary. But this was different.

I turned on my trusty Tivo to catch the Grey's Anatomy episode that I missed last Thursday. But, much to my dismay, it was from a year ago. I then remembered I had not been watching it back then so it really was "new" to me.

One of the character stories was a woman dying of cancer only she hadn't told her teenage daughter. The daughter weaves herself in and out of the scene--beligerant and impatient--never knowing that her Mom will only be a live for a short while. Of course having lost my own Mom to cancer, this was particularly poignant for me...but it went beyond that.

One of the "hot shot" doctors was dismayed to discover that the daughter had not been clued in to the extent of her mother's illness. Without going into too many details, he pretty much chastised her for not being truthful. After the mother defended herself for "protecting her child," the surgeon quickly retaliated with "if you do not tell her and you die, then she'll hate you for the rest of her life." It was a gritty scene which contrasted the difference between "white" lies and brutal honesty. Finally, the doctor came in to discover the daughter in tears sitting at the edge of her mother's bed engrossed in what she soon realized was a deathbed conversation.

This is when I began tearing up. The mother was giving the girl all the pointers that she wouldn't be able to give her after she was gone. Topics of personal hygiene and dating were tossed about before she got to the one that really got to me.

You see, I have been struggling with motherhood and walking this most challenging of paths without my own Mom there to guide me. Granted, I have my mother-in-law and my stepmother but I'm pretty sure even they would acknowledge that somehow it's not quite the same. I need to know what I was like at my son's age and how she handled my own temper tantrums and stubborness, etc. Sometimes, I feel like the biggest failure in the world and long to hear that she went through the exact same thing with ME.

So, hence my reaction to the next scene. The mother reveals the seriousness of her illness and proceeds to tell her daughter, "now here's the important one...the one you really need to pay attention to... someday you're going to have a baby. And you'll worry about what to feed him, and you'll obsess about what school to send him to and whether or not he should take piano or violin lessons...but I'm going to let you in on a little secret...it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if your child is a concert pianist or a math genius...because all that really matters is that your child is happy........"

My sobs shattered the silence of the room and suddenly I could not contain my emotions. In recent weeks, we have struggled with some behavior issues and which school to send Daniel to...and her words could not have touched me more. It was as if my own mother was speaking to me with her hand resting on my shoulder. "It's OK, " I heard her whisper.

And suddenly, I felt that she was right.