It was not until later, when I opened a baby book my grandmother had made to chronicle my mother's infancy that my stomach began to ravel itself into a tightening knot of slow, steady sorrow. As I looked at the yellowed photographs pasted onto heavy dark paper I was confronting an image I had never before contemplated - the image of my grandmother as a young mother who, like me, had two little blonde, blue-eyed girls. The minister referred to my grandmother as a "good mother." These words are so vague that they say nothing to me. They do not cause the tears to rush to my eyes as I realize that I will never be able to ask her how she ever managed to raise those little girls while also attending the University of Arkansas and while waiting anxiously for her husband to return from World War II.
The tears come as I look at the captions she has written to accompany the pictures - phrases written in an even script with white ink, intended to capture a moment forever: "This is Linda chewing on her favorite pink bunny!" "This is the dress I made for Carole - see how she's already ripped it!"
My dissatisfaction with the minister's words stems from his inattention to the particular details that, together, created a woman, a mother. Motherhood has taught me that it is not the abstract that matters, it is the tangible, the touchable, the here-and-now, that is most crucial. Before I had children, I would indulge my love of women's history by reading diaries of nineteenth-century homesteaders. I would wonder, "Were they scared? Excited? Resigned to the ambitious travel plans of their husbands?" Now I read them and think, "How did they ever keep their toddlers from running off across the prairie? Were they able to retain any optimism while traveling with a tired four year old? How could they bear to leave the tiny graves of the babies who didn't make it?"
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