By Mollie Hogan

My mother fell in March.

She broke both her arms, one at the wrist and one at the elbow. On the way to the library she slipped on a patch of black ice—the only ice left in the entire town, she explained—and stayed down until she was rescued by a neighbor who happened to see her fall.

I wasn’t there.

I live on the other side of the country. While my parents still live in the small town in New Hampshire where I went to high school, I live in Seattle with my husband and my two children. My only sibling, an older brother, lives in Europe with his family. 

My dad didn’t tell us about her fall right away. The morning after, he sent us an email that landed in my inbox as I was making lunches and trying to get my kids out the door for school. I called as soon as I could. They’d made it through the first terrible night: the trip to the orthopedist and the barbaric realignment of her wrist and her misery at three AM because the doctors sent her home without any painkillers due to hospital policy on opiates. My dad sounded faded but he insisted I didn’t have to come, not right then. We could play it by ear.

I talked to my brother. I talked to my husband. I talked to my dad again. I couldn’t tell if he was worried about inconveniencing me or if they really didn’t want me there. Thankfully, my husband decided for me. He booked me on the earliest flight the next morning, and before sunrise, drove me to the airport while my children were still asleep at home.

To get to the airport, we drive through this long tunnel that stretches under downtown Seattle. It’s lined with fluorescent lighting that turns everything inside the car an unearthly pale yellow. In the tunnel, quiet and still in that stunned, early morning artificial light, I found that I couldn’t stop weeping.

*

My children are getting older. My daughter is a freshman in high school, and my son started middle school. With babies and toddlers, the job is clear. The days are structured and itemized. There are so many logistics: naps, diapers, snacks, storybooks, bedtimes, breastfeeding, tummy time. Everything keeps repeating because nothing is ever really finished, and life has a kind of blurry, sleep-deprived layer on top of it.

It’s different now. My kids still need me, but their needs are no longer all-consuming. There’s room for me to stretch out and reclaim some of myself. I’ve been a stay-at-home parent for my children’s entire lives, and figuring out what I want that newfound space to look like has been hard. I like being a stay-at-home parent. I think I’m good at it. I feed my family well. I like tending to the house. I make room for my own passions, sewing and baking and writing and hiking, but I fit those in at the edges.

Mostly, I love being around my kids, and feel a new, panicky sense that my time with them is dwindling. I don’t want to miss any of it.

*

After my mom’s fall, I stayed with my parents for a week. I did all the things I’m good at; it felt like I’d been training for this moment. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry. Helping my mom bathe and change and get up and down the stairs. Taking care of logistics. I made her chicken for dinner most nights even though I’m vegetarian, because my mom loves chicken and I wanted her to eat as much protein as she could manage. I made her a big batch of crumpets that I packed into the freezer so she could enjoy them after I left.

I felt capable and useful the whole time I was there. In some ways, it felt like a return to when my children were little: my days were full. I knew what needed doing, and then it needed doing again. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to think, or worry, or figure out how I ought to be spending my time.

I left for home when my brother arrived in New Hampshire. He dropped me off at the bus in Nashua, and I started weeping as soon as I climbed on. I sat in stillness and silence, watching out the window, wiping at my nose and eyes. I wept all the way to the airport. 

*

Back home, I was adrift. Delighted to see my family, I struggled to feel present in the way I usually do. I had all my regular tasks of running my kids to practice and lessons and friends’ houses, getting them out the door in time for school and then back home again. I made snacks and planned meals and did the laundry. I sat with my daughter before bed and let her tell me everything about her day. I snuggled my son.

I tried to slip back into my life and my role at home, but there were moments where I didn’t have an obvious task to occupy me and I felt that empty time acutely. A part of me was still in New Hampshire. I ran through lists of what my mom might need. I texted my brother with ideas to care for them from afar. What I was doing at home was also essential, of course. But my efforts felt misaligned with the needs of the people I love.

*

This is a precious and difficult time, the in-between.

Feeling how useful I could be again, with my parents, it gave me both a sense of worth and an inverse, shadow sense of loss. Who am I, if not a full-time homemaker? Who am I, if not a primary caregiver?

I’ve been sitting with this newfound space that the in-between offers. It leaves room for stillness, and to feel the big feelings, the hard feelings, the aching and the joy. It gives me a chance to pull my passions out from the edges of my life. I’m trying to believe that maybe things can be worthy even if they are not useful.

This in-between is temporary, I know. Seismic change is coming. I am working to sit with the discomfort, to embrace the uncertainty. To savor this time of unsteadiness. It will not last.  

Mollie Hogan is a writer and recovering academic living in Seattle, WA with her two kids and husband. She wishes teleportation was a thing so she could gather around the dinner table with the rest of her family on a regular basis. 

Like what you are reading at Motherwell? Please consider supporting us here. 

Keep up with Motherwell on Facebook, Instagram and via our newsletter.