The living room is inhabited. A lamp is lit. Pale yellow light drips over her head and onto the greenish recliner. The rest of the living room is dimly lit by the television. Melancholic symphonies dance through the air and the plants reach out to touch each note. Paintings surround the room on every wall. She is perched over a book with no words. The pencil in her right hand transfers the elements of her heart onto the pages and into reality. Tears stream down one cheek and then the other.

She is my mom. In the past several years she has been a human. When I was a child she was not. She was a peerless marble statue that always had open arms. I have never been turned away. She seemed infallible. She delighted in being mother to Daniel and I. But motherhood has proved far more than joy and happiness for her.

My mom is also an artist. In the Mother's Heart series mom excavates the darker sides of motherhood. Her once held core belief that 'if you do things right, bad things won't happen to you' has been debunked. Attrition sands down even the most resolute of statues. Erosion takes its toll on the heart.

Monday evening. Here we are sitting in the living room. Before me is my mom. Her tactile crew cut, tie-dye shirt, blue polar fleece pants, woolen clogs and rhinestone studded reading glasses speak of the comfort seeker that she is. Open between us lays the sketchbook. It holds mom's visions of a mother's heart amidst real storms.

The naked woman is pregnant. Her eyes sparkle with hope and expectancy but where her chest should be is an open cavity. Inside the hole dangles a delicate crimson heart suspended by a tenuous thread. From inside her swollen belly, a tiny hand reaches up to grab the heart. She dreams of the baby's potential but does not see that joy is always knit with sorrow.

This is the beginning of it all, the initiation of a mother's heart. "Baby's First Toy,' is the title.

"A mother is utterly vulnerable to her infant," she explains," this one is about how the baby manipulates the mother's heart."

She tells me that her nine months of pregnancy were spent imagining the beautiful and perfectly formed child that would come. Mom's face reveals the little girl who always wanted to be a mommy. I wonder what the woman thinks of the little girl now?

As I listen to mom and review the drawings I begin to conceive just how difficult my essay will be to complete. I may as well have a pillow smothering my face. Our relationship is too dose to even imagine being objective. I am her daughter and not some neutral art patron.

Mom flips through the sketchbook to another drawing. This one has no title. I see a tiny room that reminds me of a closet. The walls are covered in busy wallpaper. On the back wall a huge gothic window frames a starry night and a bedraggled pine tree. In the foreground stands mom, winged, with her arm upraised in query. Before her are two cracking eggs on a simple altar. The eggs seem to be trembling, precarious.

"What does this one mean mom, what are you trying to symbolize?", I say.

"Well, I suppose it is about my spiritual life," she says, "All your lives I have brought you before God. You know how many hours I have spent on my knees praying for you and Dan when you were in need."

The times we have been in need are endless. Mom talks about Dan's near death when he was a baby, the rare diseases he contracted, learning and attempting to deal with the fact that he has ADHD, being helpless when he dropped out of high school, finding out he got Jackie pregnant, bailing him out of one financial disaster after another, his tumultuous marriage and divorce and the questioning he will ever be a normal adult.

Mom is sitting silently now. I know she wants to quit the interview but I tell her that this is what it is about, her heart. I say that I want to understand her experiences as a mother, even if they are not ideal. These are what have formed the art in this series. She decides to continue.

Now she talks about me: my reckless and defiant teenage years, the dissension between dad and I during them, the endless health issues, my struggles with depression, a miserable and violent marriage (with Scott) I shouldn't have entered, the chronic disease diagnosis, the marital separations, the emotional drain of supporting me and finally the bloody divorce. If these sentences leave you weary and short of breath, you understand. Tears burn in my eyes.

She says that God has given her wisdom and grace to cope and that dad has been a constant support. She continues, saying that the eggs can be seen in two ways.

"They are unstable and could break at any moment. They also could hatch and be amazing creatures." I see that the look on her face in the drawing is one of desperation and somehow hope. I wonder just where I am in this scenario?

She also talks about the countless times she has so wanted to disconnect but been unable to.

"Bearing you and Dan's burdens is exhausting, I have tried to just detach, but I can't.
"Do you mean like Atlas, mom?" I ask.

She answers,
"No... Atlas is strong."

I feel like crying inside. Motherhood is beyond my scope of understanding.

The image is of two birds. One is very fat and sits in a nest with its beak wide open, the baby. The other bird, obviously the mother, is tiny and looks anemic. The mother stands on the edge of the nest preparing to drop the only thing she has left to give into the fat bird's mouth, her own heart. Behind them both is an empty cupboard.

Mom's explanation is unnecessary. The drawing's symbolism is clear. I have been the baby bird for most of my life. Mom says she adores us and will never hesitate to give all she can. Throughout the interview she reiterates that the
"Mother's Heart' series does not mean that she doesn't love me or regret becoming a mom.

"These drawings speak of places I have been in the past; I didn't realize my feelings then. I see them now and I am thankful that I am not still, there," she says.
She doesn't need to tell me this.

I keep thinking about a sentence in the Bible that speaks of Christ 'pouring out his life like a drink offering'. Mom has done this for me. If I were to relate this parallel to her in the interview I think she would not recognize the depth of her own sacrifice. So I don't.

I ask mom what drawing she would say ties them all together. Even though she is in the middle of creating this series.

I ask her, "Is there any specific picture that is an 'end' drawing, you know, like how you feel now?"

She thinks for a few moments and then turns to another picture. I can't remember the name. It is of a woman's face. On one side every feature is downcast and grieving, a tear trickles down the cheek. The other side is lifted in a smile; even the eye twinkles with delight. Mom says this illustrates her present position, that motherhood is both the joy and anguish. She says that one comes with the other. She now accepts this.

I love my mom as a human. I appreciate her more now than I ever did the statue. Her Mother's Heart series speaks so loudly the choices she has made on my behalf. I still don't understand what being a mother is though. I have never been one. I don't know if I ever will be. I don't know if I have the courage.