The hands of a mother

I’m thinking about my mother’s hands.  How, at a very young age, I remember looking at her hands and knowing that her hands looked exactly like mother’s hands should look like.  Weathered, thin, callused.  Long hours of physical labour had made her arms and hands ropy and freckled - and I knew without a doubt that that was what a mother’s hand should look like.

Now, 2 months into my own adventure of motherhood, I am looking at my hands and they don’t live up to my standard at all.  Stubby fingered, hang nailed, they look too much like my own hands to be considered those of a mother.  Will Luca hold these hands one day and consider them worthy?  Although in action I am in all ways a mother, I haven’t yet mentalized the reality - it still sounds strange to me… The other day when my mother-in-law referred to ‘my son’, my response was, ‘who?”  

I realize that until now, I thought all mothers had superpowers - and perhaps they do. Somehow, though,  I don’t feel like I qualify to be a mother yet.  I am a mother - but I don’t feel any wiser, and stronger or like the superhuman being I remember my mother to be as small child.  I feel tired, smelly, overwhelmed, and it’s a miracle if I get out of the house before noon.

I know as Luca grows he will trust me completely, as I trusted completely in my mother, to always be there and to love him unconditionally.  I feel like to be worthy of that trust, I better get my shit together before he realizes I’m just an ordinary human being!

On the other hand, perhaps I do have a mother’s superpowers and I just haven’t realized it, as I have completely and utterly changed.  I have developed patience I didn’t know I had, shushing and rocking my baby to sleep in the middle of the night without resentment.  The most delicious feeling is feeling his cheek against my cheek, or being bestowed one of his early morning smiles.  I am constantly worried, checking that he is breathing, feeling guilty for putting him down and taking a shower or doing anything for myself.   At his 2 month vaccinations yesterday, I wanted to cry even after his tears had stopped, knowing that he felt pain.  I have somehow become a patient, empathetic, selfless worrywart - if that doesn’t qualify me as a strong candidate for motherhood, I don’t know what does!

In the meantime, as I wait for my brain to catch up to the reality, I will be Luca’s mother whole heartedly, even though my hands don’t look like mother’s hands.