MY PEOPLE

The Firstborn Child

Wondering if my mom felt about me the way I feel about my daughter

I was born in 1967, the first child to my parents — my father twenty-five, my mom was only nineteen years old. I doubt at the moment they held me, the thought had crossed their minds only about seventeen years later, they would become grandparents.

Teenage pregnancy

Three months before I turned seventeen, my daughter was born. I fell pregnant that very first time I had sex before I could even begin to understand the stupidity of my thoughts.

Abortion was not an option, neither was giving my child up for adoption. I have always owned my mistakes, and making the best of a not-so-good situation seems to be part of my wiring.

Holding her for the first time, looking down on her beautiful round face framed with almost black hair, I fell in love with her. My daughter. My firstborn.

Her childhood years

She never was a difficult child. It’s like in the blink of an eye she went from baby to a five-year-old, then to ten, fifteen, and before I knew she turned eighteen and took me up on my promise: she cut her beautiful long hair short.

She had her hardships, this strong daughter of mine. Physically abused by my first husband — not her father — on a horrible night, when she was only five years old. It left mean bruises on her face. Her brother was only seven months old at the time, the biological child of the man who had hit her in unreasonable anger.

Three years later, she woke up with the hand of a ‘friend’ of the family pushed down her panties. That night — her screams, her crying as I held her, the fight in the other room, the yelling — those are etched in her memory forever.

Shortly after she had turned eleven, we immigrated to the Netherlands, just the three of us, to be with my mom. This was the one decision in my life I had never regretted. It gave my children a much better life, and the safety they both deserved.

Protecting her brother

From the first moment her brother was born — she was four years and nine months old — she was protective of him. Those first years were so cute, watching her ‘mothering’ him, many times having me ask ‘who’s the mom here’ when she tried to overrule some of my decisions regarding her brother.

Now — in 20/20 hindsight — I know it wasn’t easy for her. Her brother was (and still is) intense. He was bullied at school, extremely sensitive, and cried a lot. That made her even more protective of him, but with all the attention going out to him, I’m sure she didn’t get the attention she should have had. Isn’t that something ‘they’ say? That when you have a special-needs child, the attention goes to them, and other children are ‘forgotten’?

We only learned about him being on the autism spectrum when he was eighteen. Everything fell in place then. Back when he was in school, there just wasn’t enough knowledge of it. He is highly gifted and was tested as such, and they put his ‘awkwardness’ down to that.

Fast forward to now

We had our difficult times. Some years ago she distanced herself from me. Oh, I still saw her frequently, but when we were together, it was like there was an invisible wall between us. I allowed her to process whatever she was going through, keeping the dialogue open. Months later we talked, we cried, we cleared up misunderstandings, and since then we have been closer than ever before. Those almost six months of my mom’s illness tightened our bond even more.

My daughter has turned into a beautiful woman, inside and out. She’s a wife, and a mother, and protects her family even more fiercely than I have ever done mine. She’s been with her husband for fourteen years now; married for nine. He’s the love of her life, the way my third husband is mine. Has she learned from my mistakes, to wait until she found the right man?

Her oldest — my firstborn grandchild, born when she was almost twenty-seven (much better than almost seventeen, right?!) — is on the autism spectrum too. Her youngest, the second child, is not. What I greatly admire is how she makes sure both children get the right amount of attention. How she takes out time to do things with the younger one when the eldest’s meltdowns have taken up much of her time. Has she learned this from her childhood, when she lacked my attention because her brother needed it so much?

Last night while not able to sleep, these questions and others turned over and over in my mind. Tears formed in my eyes when I thought of her. She’s strong, caring, funny, loving, confident, reliable, honest, thoughtful, creative, supporting and so much more.

She’s my child. My firstborn. I see myself in her, but every bit of me I see in her is better. And then I wonder, is this how my mom looked at me too, despite all the mistakes I have made? Did my mom see herself in me too, the way I now see my mom in me, in some of my words and actions?

In those dark hours of the night, I was overwhelmed by a rush of intense love for my daughter. I realized how immensely proud I am of her, of the person she has become, and how happy I am to have her in my life. Not only as a daughter, but also as a sounding board; a friend.

This feeling was so overwhelming, I vividly remembered that moment now almost thirty-eight years ago, when I held her in my arms and looked into her intense, soulful eyes.

That was the moment I started loving her — my firstborn.

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