Mothers are a blessing and a curse, and a stone of a hundred kilos around the neck is a stone of a hundred kilos around the neck - be it a river pebble or a diamond.
I have been a mother for twenty years and I am still dealing with my mother, who is no longer alive. I observe my children and myself when I was their age, I observe my mother when she was my age, I observe myself, in all my years, through all the years of my children and my mother. The one I know personally, who salted the land of my soul, with whom I grew like a weed that blooms beautifully, I observe the sisters of my mother, the salter of the souls of my daughters, my beloved sisters by blood, by savagery, by beautiful flowering.
We are the wild daughters of our mothers… and still, as that song already goes, the anthem to the diamond of motherhood, a little too big, but the one you mark with pride and responsibility, being constantly aware of its weight, but not feeling its burden. And those, the wild daughters of their mother, three stones of a hundred kilos around the neck of our beloved grandmother, the wild woman, the one who not only ran with the wolves, but also overtook them, they did not inherit that diamond.
In our order of love, he skipped my mother and her sisters. There are still too many river stones, untransformed, uncut. Their mother made cruel choices and accepted the cruelty that life had chosen for her.
She later told us grandchildren: “What did I know about marriage. I had a husband for three years, gave birth to three children, one after the other, I was left alone in the first year of the war, with my mother-in-law, three female children and a sewing machine. What kind of mother could I be? When they shout, I kill them, so that they don't bother me, so that I can sew. I sewed day and night, for a bag of flour, a bag of beans, sometimes they bring me some eggs, a piece of cheese, sometimes a whole chicken, I haven't slept for seven years ”
"How come, Nano, you didn't sleep, how is that possible?" That was amazing in her stories, I accepted everything else as it was said. And there were a lot of amazing things, from how the drunk Gasha (their father, who gambled all his property and then died and thus started the history of singleness of us wild women) tied them (her and her brothers) to a tree like dogs ( not to bother him), over how a pregnant woman swam across the Morava with a long woman's sock tied around her waist, which she filled with fruit on the other bank, and how the middle daughter was born with an umbilical cord, which clearly showed the shape of that sock with stolen fruit inside , to how the third female child, my mother, wanted to throw it in the trash, because the women told her so “third female, the war started, what are you going to do, throw it away” and how the husband and the unremembered father showed up just in time to prevent that and to spare my convicted mother death in the garbage dump, for the sake of life among those who did not want her.
My mother grew tall and slender, and flourished wonderfully, but her life remained a weed in the garbage dump. Her sisters were also beautiful, tall and tall - testify the photos taken before my existence, at a time when our mothers were in the age of our children now. My heart is always filled with pain, not only when I look at those pictures, but when I just remember them with a sweet-bitter feeling that overflows and overwhelms me, I always cry. I always regret their youth, lushness, beauty, energy. They were forest fairies, pagan goddesses, wild women, they sowed wild seeds of flourishing, talent and beauty and they were exhausted in anger and pain, in madness and despair, because their mother salted their souls and they never really grew up. There are three overnumbered girls left, who managed their wild mother and burdened her with the stones of her existence so much that she put all her wolf abilities in the service of survival, kidnapping from misery, hunger, death.
Our grandmother struggled monumentally, managing to surround herself with the aura of a failed countess, who still plays the piano, even though she only has a wedge soup for dinner. She did not play the piano, however, but she acted and hung out with young people and all her life she was full of spirit, unconquered, the one who relied only on herself and her sense of smell. She, whose daughters had stones around their necks, the one who salted their souls, who did not have time to observe, love and understand them, because she had an obstacle to work (to keep them alive, feed them, train them, warm them up, educate them) and which did a great job, because they all survived and did not have to starve and were always extremely trained (she sewed everything for them, and they knew how to sew themselves) and it was warm for them and they went to school and got married and had children. and took comfortable seats and won the security they had always sought…
Then, our grandmother was able to close the circle, with us, the grandchildren. Everything she could not give to her daughters, she gave to us, spontaneously, passionately, enthusiastically, in a way that did not hinder, condition or suffocate in any way. Nana taught us freedom, brought us to nature and directed us to the inner life. She always understood us, she never condemned and insulted us for anything, she always wisely advised us and was always honest with us, we trusted her with everything we hid from our mothers, the salt of our souls. She loved her daughters somehow retroactively, through us, through the role of grandmother and she did her best, in her wolfish way, instinctively, truthfully and exactly when needed. Nana showed us not only how to grow on salty soil, weeds will also grow. I manage to grow it anywhere, rather than how to salt and fertilize it. Freedom, imagination, laughter, innocence, spontaneity, acceptance, understanding, forgiveness…
The diamond stone of motherhood skipped the hereditary order, bypassed our mothers and came to us, over the mint. Because of her, I was happy for my children, I wanted and invited them and I immensely enjoyed growing up - theirs and my own. I even understood what it means not to sleep for years. And how cruel reasons and decisions of the hereditary order of love can I transform and integrate.
I had dreamed the same dream for years - I was sentenced to death and I have no idea why. They take me to execution and I don't fight and I don't protest, I know I deserve death, but I don't know why I'm crying, begging and begging to be told. Everyone looks at me reproachfully and frowning, as if my sin is too terrible to be mentioned at all, as if they are asking me to settle down and peacefully accept my destiny. I was deeply disturbed by that dream, every time, I knew it was terribly important. I need to understand, I can't just accept the burden and take it to the grave, I need to know why I'm doing it. And I finally understood. That death sentence was intended for my mother at birth, the dream directed me to the legacy of living in a world that rejected you at the beginning, without explanation. Just because you exist and you are outnumbered. It is a long way from being sentenced to death just because you exist, to finding the meaning of life in existence itself. To love for its temporary existence as such, just because it was given, without any additional arguments. Understanding is a gift of grace along the way and I am grateful and moved. The order of love is not disturbed, there are no overnumbered, love embraces everything, accepts everything, understands everything and heals everything.
My mother, the salts of my soul, thank you, I forgive you and I love you.
To be a mother, you need to be ready for challenges and tough times. Motherhood can be sweet and ugly sometimes. That's the beauty of everything.