Because that's what Mothers Do

Written in Autumn of 2024

I am sitting here at the studio. My chest is shaking as if I were shivering from cold. I had to get away from the crying and whining. 

Junior came home from work, and I gently moved my young sick son from my lap where he has been most of the day, over to his fathers. His hair was damp from sweat, the blanket stained with countless mucus marks from his sneezes today. As we shuffled him over, he began to cry and whine again. It’s not his fault. Four-year-olds whimper and wail when they don’t feel good. They are demanding and temperamental and won’t eat the food that’s cooked for them, throwing juice cups on the floor. 

And I am patient. I know that I feel the same way he does and want to behave the same way when I am sick. “Cuddle meeeeee…” he cries through snot and tears, his fevered arms reaching out for me. 

I lift him and cradle him. I try to work on the laptop with him in my arms, watch documentaries on tv, read books about sharks, pat his back, brush my fingers through his hair as he nods back and forth into napping. He tosses my hands aside and then begs for them back, throws off my hug he bawled for and then cries that I’m not close. 

He wants to go on a drive and sipping his brand-new blue slushy in the back seat. One of the only things I’ve been able get him to consume in three days. “You’re driving wrong.” he whines when I turn left. “Stop complaining.” I sigh breathlessly. He begins to sniffle “I’m not your friend.” He scolds me. “Why?” I ask over my shoulder, watching cars merging lanes and pause for traffic lights. “Betuz you said stop complaining.” and he begins the wailing in despair. 

The “fun drive” ends sooner than expected as I return home, carrying him in from the garage. I settle back onto the couch with slime coating my shoulder and sit rocking forwards and backwards to soothe his feelings. The blue slushy perched precariously on the leather ottoman in front of us.

“Shhhhhhhh.” I whisper again and again. Texting his dad to please come home from work early. My patience is thin. I want to run. I want to walk out the door away from the noise and fear and emotional trigger of him being sick. I want to get in the car and drive as far as the tank will go and collapse onto a hotel bed somewhere in the middle of nowhere and bury my head in a pillow and weep. Get away from it all. Take a break. 

But I pat his back and lay him gently across my lap and put on another rerun of dragon shows that I’ve seen a million times now. 

 “I’ll be back.” I said to Junior when he walked through the door, passing our bundled son into his father's arms. 

I sit here at the studio. I swept and vacuumed and watered the flowers outside shop. I'm writing this now, writing how I feel so it doesn't take me over. Controlling what I can control. 

I will go home soon, and I will attend to my son - no matter how he behaves, no matter how tired I am, no matter how hard it is. Because he needs me; and that's what mother's do. 

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