Ironic
Mother love is different than any other. Definitely, definitely different from a young lady’s love for that mother’s son. Yet, there is a similar intensity. Hear me now, for you who are predisposed to dive to the gutter, could here. Don’t go there. It will not serve you, nor your children, nor your lovers.
I see Owen’s loves as something unique, something beautiful. I love the attention he gave to his lady friends, for it was something to behold, something to cherish. He gave his girlfriends an attentiveness unknown to other members of his circle. That is, as it should be…in my boundary-oriented world, anyway. And, it certainly was, in his.
There are those mothers that would not write about their sons’ loves, for fear of a crossing-over of feelings. I fear nothing in this realm. Owen knew exactly how much I loved him, and in what ways. He was smart enough, intuitive enough, to separate mother love, from romantic love. He would have thought me silly to explain this. I don’t know my entire audience, so feel a need to draw a diagram for the larger blogosphere.
Often, when I write about Nat and Owen, I think of the ways they relate to the world, and that includes their relationships. As a mother, I observe them making their ways, building their lives. Well, I did, anyway.
Now, I reserve these observations for Nat, alone. I watch, I listen, and I feel…as only a mother can. I hope, too. I hope Nat takes all of our family’s relationship experiences, and makes them valuable for his adult life. Valuable. What a weird way to measure love. There’s no such measuring tool, really. Love is what it is, to each of us.
Tonight, I am remembering Owen Riley, in the ways a mother can. I remember my love for him as a baby, a toddler, a child, an adolescent, a teenager, and a young man. In all these stages, there was mother love…and there were moments when he loved young ladies, many of them unknown to me. Those that I remember, were precious to him, and to me as his mother.
What’s ironic, is that in its purest form, love has no boundaries. It just is.
“Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out
Helping you out”
Song for the night: Ironic, Alanis Morissette
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8v9yUVgrmPY
(This video is a fairly accurate depiction of what happens to me when I’m driving in the car by myself on long trips…the singing alone, the watching myself in all my incarnations, the loneliness, the longing, the desperation, the recognition of the irony of my life and those I love.)
