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I noticed that sometimes she laughed a full second after everyone else did.
Sometimes she would lean in and ask, “What was that?”
And sometimes—to my deep, enduring shame—after repeating myself twice, I said the words I have since wished a hundred times I could swallow back down.
“Oh, nothing, Mom. It wasn’t important.”
I meant the passing joke wasn’t important. I meant the little story about the neighbor’s broken fence wasn’t worth the effort of shouting. But I never stopped to consider what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that phrase. To continually be told that the family conversation simply wasn’t worth the trouble of including you.
The Comfort of Chores
Standing frozen in the hallway, I heard Hannah’s voice again. “Why didn’t you tell us you felt left out?”
Mom took a long time to answer.
Pregnancy & Maternity
“Everybody’s always having such a good time. I hate making them stop just for me.” She sighed, a sound that broke my heart, and added almost apologetically, “At least in here, doing the dishes… I know what I’m supposed to do.”
I looked down at the dirty plates trembling in my hands. All afternoon, I had happily let her clear the table. When she gathered the heavy serving dishes, I had even teased her, “You never could sit still, could you?” I had laughed. I had thought she was just being her usual, busybody self.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, walked into the kitchen, and set the plates gently on the counter beside her. “Mom.”
She turned toward me, caught the look of absolute devastation on my face, and immediately reached for a towel to dry her hands. “Oh, please don’t start feeling bad. I’m just tired, that’s all.”
Even in her moment of profound loneliness, she was instinctively trying to make things easier for me.
I wanted to frantically explain that we hadn’t meant to leave her out. I wanted to list all the thousands of ways we loved and appreciated her. Instead, I just looked at her and asked, “Would you sit with me while I dry?”
