Remedial mother: that's me

It occurred to me as I was cruising around southwest Reno today on my bike - panniers loaded with a new down filled twin duvet insert, a screamin’ deal on a 1-1/2 quart calphalon pot and a new Cusinart four slot toaster - that I’m a good Mommy, if only of the remedial variety. I teach Daughter 101.

When I was much younger than I am now, I met this dashing Western Airlines captain and fell like a piano out of a nine story window. Hard.

He had this skinny little pain in the whats’it pre-teen daughter that lived with the ex-wife in Las Vegas. She had a chip on both shoulders bigger than she was. She and I were both really stubborn and going to get our way. The good news: we both adored Dad.

After she realized life in Las Vegas had nothing but trouble in store, she moved in with Dad and stayed. With a lot of ups and downs, usually in concert with the length or lack of it in her skirts, she and I managed to get through a lot of good times and bad. Today, she is my closest woman friend on the planet and next to my husband, my  most trusted confident.

But in between, I taught her how to keep house and cook, to share the whole story about men, paint rooms, drink too much and get sick and throw up,  make candy for Christmas, to sew and why you needed to know. I promoted learning to ski and be on the debate team. I dragged her around to museums and talked history and literature whether she wanted it or not. I drove her home from dates, with her hanging out the sun-roof, drunker than nine hundred dollars telling the whole world how much she loved them while I laughed like a loon. She took very good care of me when I had cancer, and I held her head when she reacted to meds from surgery.

We both learned to respect each other deeply enough to always tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. That included some very difficult truths over the years, but since they didn’t kill us, I guess they made us stronger if not a trifle more bitchey and scarey.

And so now, I have another daughter that I hadn’t planned on. She’s from the Congo and she didn’t know how to do a lot of things, including speak gutter English or mix a perfect Manhattan.

It’s a long story of how she got here, but here’s the Clif Notes version: came over to marry the Congolese brother of a girlfriend back home, he decided his future was elsewhere (nimrod: he didn’t know what he was missing) and one day told her it was over, thanks and see you around campus. She had two phone numbers: mine and some other mutual friends who were out of town. You can guess who she called.

She’s been the living, breathing embodiment of the old saying: ‘you don’t know what another person doesn’t know’.

I didn’t know she didn’t understand what a checkbook or credit card was, or how much you couldn’t flush down the toilet at once. I didn’t know that she didn’t know how to cook anything except African food. That didn’t go over real well with the elderly judge and his wife that she was caring for. I cooked meals and sent them over. She had never driven a car, paddled a kayak, swam, floated a river, flown in a light airplane or ridden a bicycle.

I didn’t know how absolutely bright she is and how she doesn’t miss anything. I didn’t know that she was as clean and neat as a shiney penny … although we had to come to an understanding about taking more than two showers per day. I really didn’t know about washing and  setting ‘black’ hair. Thank gawd for short ‘naturals’ finally and ‘weegs’.

We’ve come an awfully long way in the last year and a half. There were certainly times when we wanted to strangle each other out of sheer frustration born of just not understanding the others cultural point of view.

But last night, after dinner and during the movie ‘Casablanca’, she sat close to me and laid her head on my shoulder and held my hands. Occasionally, I’d look down to see if she’d fallen asleep but she was fully engaged with the story of Rick and Ilsa, and thought it wonderful that occasionally people spoke French.

Yup, she’s my daughter. I’m the remedial Mommy once again. I don’t have a clue how she’s going to get through school, considering the costs, get a green card or how this will all turn out in the end.

I feel a little sorry for those women who need to ‘have’ a baby so badly that they’ll put their bodies and bank accounts through anything to get there. Just look around you. There are girls just waiting to get your love and wisdom on their journey to womanhood that need you so much.

I couldn’t be happier.

maven