The Momoir Project

by Karen Bannister

The line between us is an invisible cord that runs our voices across a vast stream, from one end of the country to another. I am in the East, tucked within the tan walls of my modern, suburban home. My son is running and yelling loudly around my feet while my husband prods him on with encouraging pokes and laughter. She is in the West, held within a home of stillness and order, surrounded by the beauty of open land and ocean air, my father’s breath beside her.

And yet, in spite of this distance we find togetherness in our daily talks. “I can hear him,” she says and I note the difficulty in her voice. I ponder regularly how the distance hurts her, as I nurse my own discomfort at being a family living apart. “Yes.” And I go on to describe to her what he is doing and how he is doing – growing and changing so greatly in the year that has now passed between her visits. I send her pictures regularly and occasionally, we try to convene in front of the computer, me holding my wiggling son still so she can catch at least a glimpse of him before he is off to play. When I ask my son, now two years old, where Grandma and Grandpa are, he points to the phone. This reality, his reality, breaks my heart.

Just yesterday, I spoke to my mother and father for the last time in what will be a two week bout of silence between us. They are in between homes on Vancouver Island and in the interim are jumping in the car to make the long-trek to my home in Ontario. They will arrive in advance of the impending birth of my daughter, their fourth grandchild and my second child. As before, my mother will hold my hand and calm my fears in the delivery room. And she will be there in the aftermath to share her wisdom born of raising three now-grown children. I look forward to this guidance, to the support before and after the birth, but most of all, I look forward to the time I know they will relish in the sweet aura of my son’s world.

My husband’s family lives close by. I know he sympathizes with the loss I encounter daily in having my family so far away from me. I also know he doesn’t quite understand the depths of this loneliness. It can be felt mostly acutely in the moments we do share together – my parents, brothers and I – when we realize there is a joy we miss daily. It can be felt in triumphant moments like birth, when a new presence shows us the beauty of life and the importance of family.

I am having a baby girl in just a few short weeks and before I even lay eyes on her, I feel a sting in my heart. More than raising a boy, I feel this sting because I long to grow as close to her as I am to my own mother, to have her nurture me and love me in the way I love my own mother. I know I will never want her away from me, and I want her to call me for my grandmother’s bun recipe and to help heal her open wounds.

Writing Start: ROOTS