Of Moms and Marriage
It’s Mother’s Day as I write and I’ve been thinking admirably about my mom — long gone to be with her Savior, Lord, and Friend — and also about something I heard long ago that has stuck with me like Velcro. I heard it spoken live by a noted psychologist — spoken with such a finality and conclusiveness, with such authority and authenticity, that it struck me and stuck. I knew it was true! This marriage counselor displayed a little anger in her voice and a scowl on her face as she said: I have counseled with many, many married couples and families, and by far the primary problem when there’s dysfunction in the home is the husband is still tied to his mother’s apron strings. They are still little boys and not grown men!
“Mom” is Beyond Words
These paragraphs are not against motherhood. God forbid! Quite the opposite. Always there to support me; wise, supportive, encouraging; challenging me to be better, and one of the strongest women I know; grateful for everything you do, and all the times you’ve been there. Those words were in the cards Mimi opened from our three kids. Some words were Hallmark’s, but our three chose those words plus their own and all were words genuinely from their hearts. Even our cocker-spaniel captured the truth with: Kind, caring, wonderful person, with all you do for me (Snoopy’s words but no less true). When you look at the hundreds of Mother’s Day cards in the store racks you realize they’ve run out of words of appreciation for moms. Just that word “appreciation” sounds so lame it’s almost insulting to use it. In thinking about my own mom it’s getting closer to the heart of it all to say she, in short, gave her life for me and my brother — her only two kids. That brings me to that pivotal moment between my mother and me.
Untying the Knot
I remember the moment well. I was on the phone with my mother. I don’t remember the year; how long Mimi and I had been married; or any of the circumstances. I do remember that not long after that moment, I heard the words of the psychologist as quoted above — words that were wonderfully affirming. I say “wonderful” because it relieved me in that it confirmed what happened in that phone conversation. I don’t remember my words to my mom that day but they came from an inner posture that had slowly matured. I felt it was from God. It may have been in the way I answered a question, or the way I coyly described something personal about me and Mimi. But my mother immediately got it. I had untied the apron knot!
A Sad/Glad Moment
It was a sad/glad moment. Sad because that last umbilical cord — the invisible one — had been cut. The first cord was cut allowing her to hold in her arms the child she had held in her belly for many long months. This new cord-severing took that child (now a man) out of her arms forever — not him out of her heart or vice versa, but out of her arms. I had finally done what it says on page 2 of my Bible for the man to do: … leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. My Bible also uses that word leave in the same way on pages 869, 893, and 1033. I had left and it wasn’t easy. (It’s interesting that the Bible nowhere says the same concerning the woman leaving her father and mother. But that’s another blog.) I felt a wave of sadness, and I sensed that wave hit her too. From that moment on my relationship with my mother was not quite the same. A dimension had suddenly disappeared. But there was a sort of gladness too between the both of us. I knew it had to happen for the ultimate happiness of both my mother and me. My mother was not only smart — a Phi Beta Kappa grad — she was also wise. It was she who, more than anyone else, encouraged Mimi and me to be married even though she knew it would mean the eventual cutting of that invisible cord. She knew too that this moment had to happen. She wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Ultimately Important
Of ultimate importance in all that has been said above is that it’s not the mom who unties the apron strings. It is the son. But if she’s a wise woman she will let go when he does. After all, this is the goal for which she and his father have prepared him. It’s like a space-craft blasting off the launch pad when all the cords are severed and all systems become internal to the craft (though communication is never severed) — a perfect metaphor for the process described in the paragraphs above.
Sitting on our porch as a beautiful Mother’s Day came to an end we heard two fireworks displays in the distance. A new Mother’s Day tradition?, I thought to myself. Why not? If anything deserves celebrating, it’s motherhood. Go ahead, light up the sky just like on Independence Day! That happens for Mimi every year. I pretend it’s all for her. She deserves it and more! She’s a great mom and she was born on the 4th of July.