The Mom I Meant to Be

It had the potential to become a mom hero story, but it instead turned into a mom fail.

I shared a bit about this hamster story in one of my first blog posts I ever published. When my oldest child was in third grade, we were presented an opportunity that I jumped on: To house the class hamster Gloria over an especially-wintry Spring Break. It seemed a great way to try out having a pet without the commitment. Besides, with the cold weather, we’d be indoors most of the break anyway. Having raised hamsters growing up, I was sure my kids would enjoy it, and I felt like I knew what I was doing. We went to the pet store and bought the hamster ball so she could get inside it and roll freely throughout the house; we checked out every hamster book from our public library. 

Several nights into her stay with us, my preschool son noticed Gloria was acting very lethargic, not running in her wheel once the lights turned off, like her nocturnal nature (and my childhood memories) would suggest. He wanted to ask the vet about her. After the kids were asleep that night, I went over to her cage and poked her tiny body, hoping she was asleep and needing proof of life. When I got none, I was sure we’d killed her—played or cuddled her to death. I panicked, instructed my husband to get rid of the hamster before the kids woke up and get a body double to replace her. Sliding into bed later that night, he assured me with a “mission accomplished.” 

When I woke my four-year-old son the next morning, his first words were, “How’s Gloria this morning?” Shocked, I smiled a quick smile and muttered “fine,” as in, Why wouldn’t she be?  My son said, “I was just checking because after she wasn’t moving last night, I remembered that the book said sometimes hamsters go into a deep sleep this time of year and it looks like they’re dead, but they’re really not.”

Later that morning, I called my husband at work and pleaded with him for reassurance that the hamster was truly dead before his shovel catapulted her over our back fence, into the cold ravine, “Tell me she was dead.” My husband replied, “Well, she is now.” 

Decades before the internet, and twenty miles from the public library, I had no way to know about hamster hibernation as a child. As a young mother, I assumed I already knew about hamsters, having housed and cared for half a dozen growing up. 

AVOIDING QUESTIONS

I’ve been in a tricky dance with knowledge and uncertainty most of my life, seeing questions as something that needed an answer to have any use at all.

When Dad was given six months to live, we were put on notice. Ask him the questions, record his voice, be intentional. We did our best, though still a bit late to the game. But when we lost Mom so suddenly, we lost some answers with her.

And that hurt because I’ve always placed great value in answers. Questions seemed weak and questions without tidy or predictable answers made me uneasy. So, many of my own questions for Mom were never asked:

• What would you re-do in life?
• What’s your best advice for parenting young adults? 
• What was your biggest accomplishment?
•  What’s your favorite/worst childhood memory? 
• What do you miss most about your parents?

And then words I would have added to her answers: 

• I’m sorry. 
• I understand. 
• I wish. 

Words never spoken.

The unasked questions are always the most difficult to live with.

I’m coming to terms with all the things I’ll never know about my mom by embracing what I do know. Her steadfast faith held her through so much uncertainty.

Because of her consistency, the Mom I Meant to Be was one that was undeterred by questions in life—and in faith. So sure of myself that an unanswered question didn’t threaten my confidence or convictions. But then I actually became a mom.

Despite my intentions, as a mom myself, I’ve never been great at embracing questions. Four-year-olds ask more than 200 questions a day, and many of them are ones that could expose a mother’s intellect or expertise, so I ignored or changed the subject when my kids asked about sinkholes, this new thing called “the internet,” or more often, faith questions (Maybe that was the reason I didn’t welcome my son’s question about Gloria and instead subverted it with my husband’s late-night run to the pet store.) 

GOD & QUESTIONS

I now realize that God deals in questions Himself. Jesus handled questions by often answering  with another question. Turns out, direct answers are rarely God’s way.

Jesus asked more than 300 questions in the New Testament, and was asked 187. He answered only three. Jesus’ teachings were frequently cryptic, as he often spoke in parables — stories that invite investigation, discussion and discernment. To build one’s faith on answer-giving rather than question-asking is to depart from the pattern modeled by the first cause of Christian faith itself.

Jonathan Merritt

In the Old Testament in Job 38, God reminded Job that pat answers (such as Job’s friends had given him) are not the way of God. God spoke of power that Job could not begin to understand, a power that laid the foundations of the earth that Job and his friends walked upon. Job didn’t lose his faith when he didn’t get direct answers. Instead, Job’s faith was deepened through questions. 

And I’m particularly aware this time of year that even Jesus’s inner circle questioned, both before His death, and after His resurrection. It’s part of being a believer.

 KNOWINGNESS 

From my journal: 

Just learned my cardiologist in Cleveland wants to do a full heart transplant evaluation on me in three months. She wants to see if I am ready to be listed, even though I’d likely be on the list for years. I feel like I’m doing fine until I hear otherwise. Part of me just really doesn’t want to know the numbers.

Sometimes we don’t ask the question because we’re afraid of the answer or afraid there is no easy answer. But sometimes the reason we avoid questions is a much more dangerous one.

“Knowingness” is already knowing the answer even before the question is asked, an attitude of always ‘already knowing.’ Assuming to know the answers even before the question comes up.

A stance of already being informed, as contrasted with a willingness to learn. (like the pharisees in Scripture.) In fact, knowingness is a false claim to knowledge that makes it impossible to learn anything new. While knowingness might be a way to manage the flood of information (or for young moms, the flood of questions), it causes us to miss a sacred opportunity to recognize our own limits, and to model humility and human imperfection to others.

Knowingness is a false claim to knowledge that makes it impossible to learn anything new.

Lori ann wood

As much as I’ve run from unanswerable questions, the false certainty of knowingness is even worse. Especially when it comes to faith.

POWER OF QUESTIONS 

I remember as a teen vowing to never become my mother, not realizing what a wonderful thing it would have been if I had. I suppose every daughter feels that on some level: wanting to be just like our mother and yet nothing like her at all.

I saw in my mother a humble, stable faith. Growing up, whenever I deeply wondered, and however far I wandered, though I didn’t realize it at the time, her palpable belief was the invisible safety net holding me and bringing me back. 

Since my diagnosis, I’ve begun to see value not in the answers that I had sought all my life but rather in questions. They’re what keep faith alive, a lifeline to God when answers aren’t ours to have. Turns out, a dark night of the soul—when answers don’t come—is part of any journey of faith.

Questions keep faith alive, a lifeline to God when answers aren’t ours to have.

lori ann wood

Questions are holy; curiosity is sacred, discernment is wisdom, and doubting is a necessary component, without which faith itself is impossible.

Jonathan Merritt

MOTHERHOOD MULLIGANS

I have a laundry list of things I’d like to change about the way I mothered, not based on the adults they became, but based on the memories connecting us now.

I can make excuses for unforeseen issues like cellphones and the internet, but at the top of my list of do-overs would be how I handled questions. I was afraid of not having the answer, or leaving a question unanswered for too long. But that fear inadvertently created a knowingness that was a much bigger threat.

Like most moms, I have things I’d re-do if I could. But then I remember that I’m still a mom, and I can still become a better version of myself, armed with the knowledge that even without answers, questions form a solid connection. 

Even without answers, questions form a solid connection. 

lori ann wood

Mom supported our love for pets she didn’t understand, such as hamsters, guinea pigs, and even an ant farm. Turns out, I am a bit like her in that way, okaying a hedgehog and a salamander. And now I see in my daughters bits of Mom’s dry wit or culinary ability. Each taking something of our past, making it our own, and transferring it to the next generation. So I’ll keep blinking when I look in the mirror and see more of my mother looking back.

Because I’m still a mom-in-progress, and always will be.

But more importantly, I’m still a child—a child of God. And if I’ve learned anything by examining the Mom I Meant to Be, I now know I need to embrace my own constant and sacred question-asking, especially on difficult days.

My mother always ran  toward her faith in tragedy instead of away from it. I have a precious, distinct memory of Mom reaching out and deliberately touching the bible on her coffee table as hospice was preparing Dad’s death certificate just a few feet away from her. Some of that “moving toward”—embracing the parts not fully understood—must have finally rubbed off on me. After all, the book baby I birthed later in life (two years after losing mom), brought up dozens of questions that I didn’t turn away from.

That’s little consolation for Gloria, the class hamster. 

She no doubt would wish I’d realized the dangers of knowingness a little sooner, too.

Listen to this post read by the author HERE.