Molasses and Straw
On Sunday two of my best girlfriends and their children gather at my home for the Seahawks game. There are five little girls between us. Five, not four, as we had the year before. Since last football season Julia* has found a new love. With this man made of gentleness and warmth, this man man who makes my friend’s eyes shine, comes a little girl, a step-sister for Julia’s young daughter. They’re a striking pair, these little girls, one with straight hair the color of autumn grass in the sunlight, the other with light brown curls framing a round face. These precious girls of straw and molasses are five and six, a year apart. They call one another sister.
I sit on the beanbag in my family room watching the game. The little girls pounce on me, looking for tickles and play. I soak them in, these beautiful creatures that smell of sunshine and powder, as their soft hair floats across my face.
In two days they will travel with their parents to Hawaii. “I’m packing for four now,” Julia texted me earlier in the week.
I’m packing for four now. Four when there were only two.
What a difference a year can make.
Ah, the cynics say. But this will never work. Blended families and ex-spouses. How impossible it will be.
“She asked me to lunch,” says Julia, when the children go upstairs to play. She, is the ex-wife. Yes, the ex-wfie and Julia met, like adults, for lunch to talk about how to make all of this work so that every member of this new blended family can breathe easily. They were generous, kind, thankful, putting the little molasses girl before their own insecurities or petty jealousies. These are mothers, I think, as I hear the story. The real kind. Yes, this is how mothers do it. No matter that our families are a little blurry or slightly askew, we make it work. When a woman loves, she pulls resources from inside like a magician with a never-ending ribbon hidden up his sleeve.
On Monday, in my Facebook feed, a friend posts a study about what makes marriages last. Two elements, the study suggests: kindness and generosity. Well, of course, I think.
Surely this is true for all relationships, not just romantic partnerships? Love works between two people when we’re kinder than we think we can be, given our insecurities and fear of rejection. Relationships flourish when we’re more generous than we want to be what with our grasping and worries. If I give more, I have less, we might think. And kindness? I can be kind if someone else is first, we might bargain with ourselves. Because we don’t always feel kind. We don’t always feel generous. Many times we feel small and petty. Insecure and angry. It’s to be expected, we think. Look at what we’ve been through! The damage done to us! We should be guarded and greedy, not loving and giving. Given our battles, our pasts, the scars we want to hide but are closer to the surface than we thought – we cannot be kind, we cannot be generous.
Oh, but we can.
I know, because kindness is all around me.
After a blog piece from several weeks ago, comes a text from a friend. “I’ll take you to find jeans.” That was all. Just a simple sentence. A small act of kindness in this harsh world.
After last week’s post, I received a note from another friend. Divorced and raising kids, he thanked me for writing honestly about dating after divorce, as it made him feel less alone. He ended his note with, “You are a badass, Tess, and braver than I will ever be.” He didn’t have to add that last part. It was simply generous and had the power to make me feel as if his words were true.
I could go on about the daily kindnesses given me. As I write this, I wonder, do I give enough in return?
Last night the wind blows harsh, whining and roaring against my house. In the morning, the sky is blue, the branches of the trees bare where there were scarlet leaves just yesterday. Changes, the world always in motion. Time goes by. What a difference a year can make. I think of this for myself too. Stay hopeful. In a year, who knows? There might be someone there when I turn from the window who understands how I mourn the leaves. He might remind me – They come again. Every year they come.
Later, I stumble through our morning ritual, making scrambled eggs and bacon for Emerson, despite a head cold that’s making me sluggish. She chatters away, unaware of my weariness. Then, between bites of bacon, “Mommy, I’m so glad you’re my mommy.”
It stops me every time. How kind her little heart is. How generous.
We worry so, all parents, whether divorced or married. Will our children be all right? Have I prepared them for the world? Have I taught them to be strong, resourceful, kind, generous?
We can’t know for certain, but we know this: teaching does not come from telling, but from our actions. We teach our children how to be kind and generous by being so ourselves.
So Julia and her blended family of molasses and straw? They will be just fine. The cynics, the darkness seekers, the naysayers, are no match for mothers. No, mothers keep pulling that endless ribbon from their hearts, strong and stronger, no matter the season.
It will be enough.
And someday, the little girls of molasses and straw will do as they have learned from their mothers. Kindness and generosity. And it will be enough.
* Name changed to protect the innocent.
