Cala Lily #1 byDoug Leany--13680974944_19e1ed7344_o.jpg

Of Being Needed, Appreciation and Matilda …

Cala Lily #1 byDoug Leany--13680974944_19e1ed7344_o.jpg
“Cala Lily #1”

by Doug Leany

 

I don’t need you. You need me. … I’m the mother. You’re the child.”

My mother’s statement to men when I was around ten or eleven years old echoed those of Danny DaVito, who played the father of the character, Matilda, played by Mara Wilson in the movie, Matilda.

“I’m big, you’re small. I’m strong, you’re weak. You need me. I don’t need you.”

My mothers’s words hurt.

Not until now do I realize why?

Everyone wants to feel needed, even a child. And what better way to demonstrate a person’s importance in your life than to tell and show how much you need them?

We don’t often think of parents needing children. And yet it is out of a need to leave something behind, place our mark on the world, provide evidence that we were once here, trod upon and through this place called earth and life that we procreate.

 

Many will say that curiosity provoked them to have a child, to see what is like to have a little one running around. The multitude of children available for adoption can quite adequately provide that experience.

To watch a live being whose roots lie in your womb or loins grow through and into life is one of the most awe-inspiring experiences that anyone can witness and experience.

If to experience something is to know it, then acknowledging and living with one’s needs renders us more human, more alive and makes life more real. The experience of an authentic and emotion-embracing life provides the foundation for not only love, but the ability to welcome and claim that which gives meaning beyond one’s demise and transformation.

The need anyone has to create, give birth or father a child, speaks to her or his desire to live eternally.

That my mother could so vehemently assert her lack of need for me in her life, underscored that she required my presence more than she or I could know. It pains me still that she could not acknowledge that. In the lack of her ability to express her need for me, her daughter, I yearned for her, mother.

I still do.

_______________________________

 

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