I am crying for someone I've never met, that I have never known truly, someone known by everyone, and still feel crushed and lost and hurt and angry like I knew them. It doesn't mean I've lost touch with reality or that I do not care in general for the suffering of the unnamed or that I love in a way that is unrealistic and fantastic. Sometimes we are just forced to confront our feelings of fear and loss in an immediate and direct way. Sometimes watching a supernova burn out reminds us that we are just hurtling through space on a rock warmed by the sun. Sometimes the comet that we tied our hearts to is disintegrating into the blackness and it stops our breath.
My house is eerily quiet, missing someone who was never there. The girls are asleep, snuggled up together across the hall from me. The night light plugged in for the seven year old, is slowly changing colors and throwing candy shadows against the wall. She'll be in my bed soon. I hear myself breathing. Not a good strong breath. I can't fill my lungs and exhale through my nose because only these shallow, choppy breaths keep me from bursting into tears again. I can feel my heart beating deeply in my chest. I cannot stop that. I listen to it and begin to count. The counting takes my mind away from the loss. It gives me something to do so that my idle mind does not visit what's missing. I've cried for every one of them, have been struck to the core.
News of the passing of someone that inspired me or showed me myself before I'd even considered myself sucked the air from my lungs and stilled everything. It seemed to never stop. My heart would go deep into my chest and my chest to my knees. Before I could stop them, there would be tears. I'd feel the planet's atmospheric pressure change. I'd know it to be true that they were gone and I'd sit. Sit with the silence and the truth of the inevitable. I'd go to the tape or the film or the music or the words or the pictures and will their presence on this earth just a little longer. I'd recall a time, a place, a moment, a gesture. I'd hear the first note and feel my teenaged, awkward self rise from the couch in awe and disbelief.
I'd remember the first time. I'd remember myself from that moment, from that time. I'd feel the layers of myself, the ones at the bottom, the ones that built me, and I'd remember the voice or the music or the sound or the image. I'd sit in the darkness. I'd trace my racing thoughts through my brain. I'd feel loss. I'd mourn. I'd grieve. I'd miss them, desperately miss them, their presence, their shared place on this earth and I'd reach out to others who shared the same sense of loss and longing. We'd ask why. We'd wonder if anything could have been done. Could anything have saved them? Can anything save us?
I'm in my bed with just one light on. There is a saved side but I know that only my littlest will share the bed with me tonight. Eventually. The rest of the room is dark and still and I am alone. I cannot bear to watch TV or videos. Cannot bear to listen to the news. With each retelling of a life in past tense, I shrink smaller in my own in the present. We are living apart essentially no matter that I have saved a place for him here at his insistence. It hurts. This loss. This missing what I never had, what I never knew because he remained aloof and untouchable all this time. All my promises to live fuller, to follow my own path, to walk through darkness, to trailblaze are whispers in the face of this overwhelming malaise. I am in shock, scared, and startlingly aware of my own presence. I feel myself watching me and wondering what I intend to do with my life. I listen to my shallow breathing and wonder if I intend to pour the fullness of me into my children because I don't dare live the life I promised myself I'd try to seek, but insist they try to reach. I wonder if I even have it in me to dream anymore. I rub my eyes. Stardust. In my eyes.
This last time the girls catch me, see my face in the rear view mirror as I adjust it to back out. "Are you crying, Mommy?" And I am. I'd let myself believe that the fates would spare these people. Might spare us this grief. That they would not all be taken. I joked with others about the Rapture and end days and then in the silence asked aloud if there was something I was missing. It's like standing in the middle of the storm, at its eye where it seems calm, yet all around there is madness. And I am both the calm and the madness. There are so many tears that I tell the girls that the stardust swirling in the air has gotten into my eyes. I am aching to my core because everything I thought I knew is no more. With each passing, a part of my foundation crumbles. As my girls witness me crack and glue myself together. They attend my Spotify listening parties and watch YouTube videos. They hold hands with me while I read to them thinking of my youthful heroes fading. It is the three of us. They have no choice but to allow me my space to heal.
As a girl, I'd fixed myself to the stars even though I knew that if I could see them, they'd probably already burned out. I saw them in the sky twinkling, sparkling, showing me infinite possibility and waited for them, longed for them in that weightless forever. I was transported. So many who have passed this year were those stars for me. They gave me voice, spoke my pain and heartache, longing and desire, wit and humor. They were everywhere, some so much that I assumed I'd have them longer than they'd been promised to the world. After first denying that they were gone, my heart settled on the realization, on the truth, and the tears could not stop. A short, shallow breath can hold in the despair only so long and then you are whimpering on your knees.
And I am here again. Another loss. They came so fast this year that I could hardly catch my breath before the heartache came again. And yet, I almost welcomed the distraction. I am already grieving. Each day a new assault on my heart. Each day a crack to be reglued. I keep holding up the stars for my girls, offering them magic to believe in. I have tried to show them the very best of these people, the very best they've given. They are already supernovas, hardly seen as human in our eyes. Beyond. Magic. Heroic but also human. We all need our heroes. Theirs is their father. And when I met him, he was sprinkled in stardust. By the time I was looking directly at him, he was already gone. I knew it. But I couldn't believe it. The giant universe that shared with us all these wonderful people now seems oppressive and scary and cold. But I keep holding up the stars for my children though I mourn the loss of the magic and the stardust.
I cannot name them all, but they each left this world and exploded like supernovas into another without warning. The sense of being left behind by their meteor trail of magic, unable to catch the tail of that comet, triggered me in so many ways. Before I could get my bearings, it would happen again. And when he finally comes home, I'll have no choice but to look into that trail of stardust and confront the sadness.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Showing posts with label hurt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hurt. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Miscarriage of Justice
WARNING: Some graphic imagery of the experience of a miscarriage.
Miscarriage: failure to attain the just, right, or desired result/end; he expulsion of a fetus before it is viable, especially between the third and seventh months of pregnancy
Miscarriage of justice:
primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. "Miscarriage of justice" is sometimes synonymous with wrongful conviction, referring to a conviction reached in an unfair or disputed trial.
Before I was pregnant with my second child, I'd suffered two miscarriages. Just weeks into each pregnancy (the first at five weeks, the second at ten) seemingly no different than the one that had delivered its promise of a baby, my body, ripe and pumping with hormones and an increased blood supply, began to tear the walls down. My heart skipped a beat and then a small cramp. I felt nervous and my palms began to sweat. I believe I was holding my breath. I didn't want to look, to check. A small cramp was not entirely uncommon or unexpected. My body was trying to tell me something I did not want to know. I knew it and still didn't want to listen.
The cramping began to increase and I was hot. My skin, plump and swollen, got cold and clammy. My breasts and nipples already longing to nurture that baby were so sensitive to the touch that it seemed just my clothes were too much. I felt the longing, the begging, and the pleading. "Please don't let this be." And then the resolve. There was blood. Blood everywhere and I was alone and even when people came to my call, I was alone. The first time in France in my in-laws' upstairs bathroom on New Year's Eve. The second time in the apartment I shared with my soon-to-be husband and our first child just weeks shy of the end of the first trimester. I was at a loss for words. Everything everyone said to comfort me sounded muffled. I didn't want them to talk to me. I wanted them to listen. To listen to the sound of the moment and it was deafeningly quiet. It was so real that try as I might to escape in my mind, I was pulled back into the present with each tiny contraction. A friend of mine, one of my very best, who is also a healer had once said to me, 'we cannot expand and grow all the time. Sometimes we have to contract.' That thought kept coming to mind. I can't say why, but it somehow gave me comfort and the space to accept what was to be.
We wanted another child, a partner and friend for our first, and after meeting with my doctor and receiving the appropriate shots (I have Rh negative (Rhesus negative) blood which means that my blood is most likely not compatible with the blood of the baby and certain precautions have to be taken), we decided to try again. My husband was hopeful and to some degree disconnected from the emotional and spiritual effort it was going to take to get back out there. Encouraged by the all clear from my doctor, he was eager to start the baby-making! I was more apprehensive. The losses had been traumatic, terrifying, and exhaustively lonely. I did indeed want to have another baby but was so scared to lose another. The sense memories, smells, tingles, ringing in my ears, the muscle memory of loss pulled tightly at my core. My heart and gut wrenched, my palms became sweaty, I was nervous and easily agitated and very short tempered.
I didn't watch either of the videos. We came home from the day-late Independence Day fireworks to our cable, phone, and internet service not working. It turned out to be a blessing. As I did a quick review of the latest on social media on my phone I saw the first hashtag: #ripaltonsterling. It wasn't difficult to put the pieces together to see what had happened. I knew better than to even try to watch the video on my phone. Already I was shaking. My heart and gut wrenched and my palms were sweaty. I looked to posts from my 'woke' friends. I was in a panic. Piecing together small details--selling CDs, concealed carry state, gun in his pocket, point blank range, black, black, black, black, black. I knew guys who sold CDs on the street. Hell, I'd bought some back in the day when I didn't know better and could scarcely afford a good meal let alone my favorite music.
Like with the first cramp suffered in the upstairs bathroom, I stood alone. I didn't even want to say the words out loud. I looked down. Blood. Real, thick, dark. Pulled into the present. This is happening. From the bathroom, "Honey, something is wrong." And now from the bedroom, barely whispered, "They killed another black man on the street." The depth of our disconnect even more expanded, there was no answer. "A man. Selling CDs. Pinned down and shot at point blank range." My husband looked up. "No. Can't be. How they can do that?" Nervous, easily agitated, short tempered. I had to move, walk around. I knew not to try to watch the video, the video! I knew that I was suddenly very alone.
Retreating to my bed, to sleep, seemed the best option and I took some melatonin to disappear and went in. When I woke up to the news of the murder of Philando Castile, a young, black man who'd been shot and killed in the driver seat of his car as he'd reached for his permit to show the officer who'd demanded it, I blanched. That his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and his child had also been in the car and that his girlfriend had live streamed his death, dropped me to the floor. Again, I did not watch the video but saw a still. The blood. The thick, dark blood on a white t-shirt on a man sitting in the driver's seat of his car. The scene was haunting, surreal.
I looked down and took stock of my surroundings. That hyper-awareness that trauma brings. I see the floor, the walls, my feet. There is so much blood. I smell the food cooking downstairs. I see the whites of my eyes gleaming with tears and fear. I see blood. A miscarriage. A failure to achieve a desired end. I'm still standing. I sit and try to breathe deeper breaths than the shallow, panicked wisps that are leaking out of me like cold winter smoke rings. All the moments I've ever looked at my feet, my hands, my face, the floor, the wall come rushing to me. I am pulled back to the present.
They have killed another black man in the street. There was no trial, no accusation (none formal at least). This was not justice. It is not just. There has been a rush to find fault in these two men as has been done countless times before. I have taken stock of my surroundings. I stare down at my hands and at my feet. I see the walls, the floor. This has all happened before and before me and before them and before all of us. That in a public court of opinion these men cannot be found innocent of a crime they did not commit because by being black they are guilty. There is a lot of talk about it. Too much for me right now because I need the sound of the moment in its deafening quiet. I need there to be listening.
When we'd passed fifteen weeks during my pregnancy with the little one I felt safe enough to tell people that we were pregnant, but the panic never stopped. I checked between my legs daily. I responded to gas, fullness, fatigue with worry and panic. I prayed and chanted and mantra-d from point to point. I was afraid and I was hopeful. We can do this, I thought. We have before. She wants to stay with us. She wants to be our baby. The gods are shining on us. They want her to be ours too. But until she was in my arms, peering up at me with those shiny, black eyes, I was prepared for the worst. Prepared to lose her, prepared to suffer and hurt and feel anguish in silence. Silence because looking at me in my hurt was too much for most to bear.
It is hard to watch someone in excruciating pain. It is hard to watch them writhe and twist and ache so deeply internally that their body contorts, the way they appear on the outside is hideous to behold, their faces change, their destinies are missed, their paths misdirected. We fear pain like the dark hand of misfortune. We don't want it to touch us too so we turn from it, intellectualize it, talk and talk and talk about it, analyze it, describe it, try to work around it but it can only be confronted deep inside. It is bloody and dark and thick. It is slow and gruesome and sudden. It throbs and burns and pulls. And then gives release.
The tiny space within me that I keep my deepest fears and secrets burst at the seams and I cried for days, endlessly. I'd heard that the little four year in the car, in the back seat, where I now strapped my two children, tried to comfort her mother as her father lay dying in the driver's seat. I'd heard that Diamond Reynolds was taken into custody and I wondered where her tiny girl was taken. I wept at the thought of the rushing, the fast moving, the approach with with Alton Sterling was met in those last moments. Wondered if he said to himself, 'this is just like that guy...' before someone put a gun to his chest. I could not stop crying as I thought about all the blood and its metallic smell, its dankness, its thick, tacky swell as it flowed from the body. I would wipe my eyes and more tears would come thinking of the moments in stillness when even though there was sound and screaming and fury, for a split second the dead silence of that present moment froze the world. *gasp* And then it was done.
I remember the heaviness of the blood, the weight on my shoulders, the pulling in my heart, believing I could never recover from a loss like this. One that had been a secret, one that was private, one that was mine to mull and cultivate. And I came to see, I have to tell you. I have to tell you that these are not just stories on white paper. They are not clean or neat or easily filed. They are real life. The just, right, desired end was that I would bear another child and bring her into this world and love her and have every right to share with her and show her and celebrate with her the beauty of this human experience. I hope I can. The just, right, desired end would be that two men, black men, who had every right, so it is said, to share and celebrate the beauty of our shared human experience would not be dead because they'd been unfairly tried and convicted because they were black.
It's incredible this life. And heartbreaking. Black lives matter. Too.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama in the Jungle: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Miscarriage: failure to attain the just, right, or desired result/end; he expulsion of a fetus before it is viable, especially between the third and seventh months of pregnancy
Miscarriage of justice:
primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. "Miscarriage of justice" is sometimes synonymous with wrongful conviction, referring to a conviction reached in an unfair or disputed trial.
Before I was pregnant with my second child, I'd suffered two miscarriages. Just weeks into each pregnancy (the first at five weeks, the second at ten) seemingly no different than the one that had delivered its promise of a baby, my body, ripe and pumping with hormones and an increased blood supply, began to tear the walls down. My heart skipped a beat and then a small cramp. I felt nervous and my palms began to sweat. I believe I was holding my breath. I didn't want to look, to check. A small cramp was not entirely uncommon or unexpected. My body was trying to tell me something I did not want to know. I knew it and still didn't want to listen.
The cramping began to increase and I was hot. My skin, plump and swollen, got cold and clammy. My breasts and nipples already longing to nurture that baby were so sensitive to the touch that it seemed just my clothes were too much. I felt the longing, the begging, and the pleading. "Please don't let this be." And then the resolve. There was blood. Blood everywhere and I was alone and even when people came to my call, I was alone. The first time in France in my in-laws' upstairs bathroom on New Year's Eve. The second time in the apartment I shared with my soon-to-be husband and our first child just weeks shy of the end of the first trimester. I was at a loss for words. Everything everyone said to comfort me sounded muffled. I didn't want them to talk to me. I wanted them to listen. To listen to the sound of the moment and it was deafeningly quiet. It was so real that try as I might to escape in my mind, I was pulled back into the present with each tiny contraction. A friend of mine, one of my very best, who is also a healer had once said to me, 'we cannot expand and grow all the time. Sometimes we have to contract.' That thought kept coming to mind. I can't say why, but it somehow gave me comfort and the space to accept what was to be.
We wanted another child, a partner and friend for our first, and after meeting with my doctor and receiving the appropriate shots (I have Rh negative (Rhesus negative) blood which means that my blood is most likely not compatible with the blood of the baby and certain precautions have to be taken), we decided to try again. My husband was hopeful and to some degree disconnected from the emotional and spiritual effort it was going to take to get back out there. Encouraged by the all clear from my doctor, he was eager to start the baby-making! I was more apprehensive. The losses had been traumatic, terrifying, and exhaustively lonely. I did indeed want to have another baby but was so scared to lose another. The sense memories, smells, tingles, ringing in my ears, the muscle memory of loss pulled tightly at my core. My heart and gut wrenched, my palms became sweaty, I was nervous and easily agitated and very short tempered.
I didn't watch either of the videos. We came home from the day-late Independence Day fireworks to our cable, phone, and internet service not working. It turned out to be a blessing. As I did a quick review of the latest on social media on my phone I saw the first hashtag: #ripaltonsterling. It wasn't difficult to put the pieces together to see what had happened. I knew better than to even try to watch the video on my phone. Already I was shaking. My heart and gut wrenched and my palms were sweaty. I looked to posts from my 'woke' friends. I was in a panic. Piecing together small details--selling CDs, concealed carry state, gun in his pocket, point blank range, black, black, black, black, black. I knew guys who sold CDs on the street. Hell, I'd bought some back in the day when I didn't know better and could scarcely afford a good meal let alone my favorite music.
Like with the first cramp suffered in the upstairs bathroom, I stood alone. I didn't even want to say the words out loud. I looked down. Blood. Real, thick, dark. Pulled into the present. This is happening. From the bathroom, "Honey, something is wrong." And now from the bedroom, barely whispered, "They killed another black man on the street." The depth of our disconnect even more expanded, there was no answer. "A man. Selling CDs. Pinned down and shot at point blank range." My husband looked up. "No. Can't be. How they can do that?" Nervous, easily agitated, short tempered. I had to move, walk around. I knew not to try to watch the video, the video! I knew that I was suddenly very alone.
Retreating to my bed, to sleep, seemed the best option and I took some melatonin to disappear and went in. When I woke up to the news of the murder of Philando Castile, a young, black man who'd been shot and killed in the driver seat of his car as he'd reached for his permit to show the officer who'd demanded it, I blanched. That his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and his child had also been in the car and that his girlfriend had live streamed his death, dropped me to the floor. Again, I did not watch the video but saw a still. The blood. The thick, dark blood on a white t-shirt on a man sitting in the driver's seat of his car. The scene was haunting, surreal.
I looked down and took stock of my surroundings. That hyper-awareness that trauma brings. I see the floor, the walls, my feet. There is so much blood. I smell the food cooking downstairs. I see the whites of my eyes gleaming with tears and fear. I see blood. A miscarriage. A failure to achieve a desired end. I'm still standing. I sit and try to breathe deeper breaths than the shallow, panicked wisps that are leaking out of me like cold winter smoke rings. All the moments I've ever looked at my feet, my hands, my face, the floor, the wall come rushing to me. I am pulled back to the present.
They have killed another black man in the street. There was no trial, no accusation (none formal at least). This was not justice. It is not just. There has been a rush to find fault in these two men as has been done countless times before. I have taken stock of my surroundings. I stare down at my hands and at my feet. I see the walls, the floor. This has all happened before and before me and before them and before all of us. That in a public court of opinion these men cannot be found innocent of a crime they did not commit because by being black they are guilty. There is a lot of talk about it. Too much for me right now because I need the sound of the moment in its deafening quiet. I need there to be listening.
When we'd passed fifteen weeks during my pregnancy with the little one I felt safe enough to tell people that we were pregnant, but the panic never stopped. I checked between my legs daily. I responded to gas, fullness, fatigue with worry and panic. I prayed and chanted and mantra-d from point to point. I was afraid and I was hopeful. We can do this, I thought. We have before. She wants to stay with us. She wants to be our baby. The gods are shining on us. They want her to be ours too. But until she was in my arms, peering up at me with those shiny, black eyes, I was prepared for the worst. Prepared to lose her, prepared to suffer and hurt and feel anguish in silence. Silence because looking at me in my hurt was too much for most to bear.
It is hard to watch someone in excruciating pain. It is hard to watch them writhe and twist and ache so deeply internally that their body contorts, the way they appear on the outside is hideous to behold, their faces change, their destinies are missed, their paths misdirected. We fear pain like the dark hand of misfortune. We don't want it to touch us too so we turn from it, intellectualize it, talk and talk and talk about it, analyze it, describe it, try to work around it but it can only be confronted deep inside. It is bloody and dark and thick. It is slow and gruesome and sudden. It throbs and burns and pulls. And then gives release.
The tiny space within me that I keep my deepest fears and secrets burst at the seams and I cried for days, endlessly. I'd heard that the little four year in the car, in the back seat, where I now strapped my two children, tried to comfort her mother as her father lay dying in the driver's seat. I'd heard that Diamond Reynolds was taken into custody and I wondered where her tiny girl was taken. I wept at the thought of the rushing, the fast moving, the approach with with Alton Sterling was met in those last moments. Wondered if he said to himself, 'this is just like that guy...' before someone put a gun to his chest. I could not stop crying as I thought about all the blood and its metallic smell, its dankness, its thick, tacky swell as it flowed from the body. I would wipe my eyes and more tears would come thinking of the moments in stillness when even though there was sound and screaming and fury, for a split second the dead silence of that present moment froze the world. *gasp* And then it was done.
I remember the heaviness of the blood, the weight on my shoulders, the pulling in my heart, believing I could never recover from a loss like this. One that had been a secret, one that was private, one that was mine to mull and cultivate. And I came to see, I have to tell you. I have to tell you that these are not just stories on white paper. They are not clean or neat or easily filed. They are real life. The just, right, desired end was that I would bear another child and bring her into this world and love her and have every right to share with her and show her and celebrate with her the beauty of this human experience. I hope I can. The just, right, desired end would be that two men, black men, who had every right, so it is said, to share and celebrate the beauty of our shared human experience would not be dead because they'd been unfairly tried and convicted because they were black.
It's incredible this life. And heartbreaking. Black lives matter. Too.
(c) Copyright 2016. Repatriated Mama in the Jungle: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Mother's Day: broken and fixed
Delicious treats dreamed up by my love, fabulous gifts, and the comfort of family makes Mother's Day special or at least appropriately celebrated in the eyes of our everyday-is-a-party culture. I don't need pomp and circumstance and surely don't stand on ceremony, not for this made up day. Mother's Day is always a strange one for me. My husband, who is a private chef, almost always works so that the lady of the house can celebrate with her family in grand fashion. THAT is her Mother's Day.
Mine, at least for the past few years, looks more like this: my husband leaves for a beautiful destination of the rich and famous by private jet or souped up, tinted-window SUV to prepare luxury meals and treats for his clients, and I finish out the week of school, activities, play dates, grocery shopping, story reading (now listening since the 6 year old is thrilled to show off her reading), and socializing on my own. It's our rhythm and save the early school drop off on Friday when both girls need to be ready early enough to drop by 8 am, I can and do handle it.
I am too keenly aware of how quickly my children are growing up. Little chubby hands and fat, yummy fingers have become strong and elegant, rolly-poly bodies have elongated into graceful torsos, arms and legs for days, and beautiful faces resting on long necks. I measure time by these changes, recall real life events by growing and falling teeth, short or long hair, training wheels or riding free. In a mother's calendar there are also injuries and ailments as mile markers, moments that stop one's heart, and shore up strengths one did not know were there.
I remember when Lily broke her finger one summer when her cousin was visiting and recall her saying with pride after she'd been X-rayed and splinted, "I can't believe I broke a bone!" She was beaming and proud of her ability to hurt, to suffer, and to endure. She was so human in that moment and she brought my fantasy of being able to protect them, live the hurts for them, take the force of the blow, crashing to the ground. And months later when Virginie, walking with some friends along the creek that either trickles or rages through our town depending on the season, tripped and cut her chin requiring three stitches, I regretted the choice I made to allow her the opportunity to explore and court danger.
It's the delusion I have of shielding my children from life's pains and ills and woes, and physical safety seems a good place to practice. How many times a day do I say, "Be careful! Watch out! Don't touch that! Don't slip! Don't fall! Look out! Why would you do that? You are going to hurt yourself!" And hurt sucks. The iconic images of motherhood show women cuddling and comforting their children, holding them close, wiping tears and touching boo-boo's. The urban mythology of mothers lifting cars, running into burning buildings, staring down wild animals or humans to keep their babes safe only emphasizes this expectation.
When I arrived to a screaming Virginie, hurt on an after-school play date, her middle toe on her left foot smashed by a falling board, I immediately knew it was bad. She was screaming bloody murder. There was blood everywhere. Her tears were fat, her fear palpable, and I needed to make it right. Though I hate driving, especially on any road with more than 2 cars, I packed up my peanut in the car with her favorite things and some warm clothes and raced her to the ER. I carried her in and though I did not scream like Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment", I would have if the staff wasn't so efficient. I hadn't taken the time to truly look at her little toe because I'd gone into autopilot, but now we had time to be together...and I peeked.
She looked at me with those longing, big, brown eyes, eyelashes glued together with tears, and asked, "Is it bad? Is it bad, Mama?"
"It's alright, Peanut. We are going to get you better. These people here are going to help us. Just hold onto Mommy if you feel scared." And she squeezed. And I squeezed back. Also the tears. Her toe looked so, so terrible and it was. I wondered how this tiny thing had suffered, what she must have felt and thought, when pain, pain like that is still relatively new. I thought about all the hurts I'd ever had, all the hurts from which I will need to shield her, all the shoring up, all the armor, and I wished that I could take the hit. I silently prayed, "Why didn't you let it happen to me? Why did it have to be her?" And I became steely because we had hours to go and I was angry and hurt for her and I could only be by her side and bombard her with love and comfort. (Broken)
She was wheeled into a room for an X-ray to make sure that her toe wasn't broken. It was cold in the room and made heavy by the lead aprons we wore to shield our organs from the radiation. Hers was a ladybug. Mine was blue. She lay there on that table, following directions and holding still, tiny tears falling to her ears, balling her hands into fists. She was pulling it together. She looked at me and I smiled and she at me. She got to wheel herself back in a wheelchair (a wheelchair!) to our triage curtain and she beamed. Though she could "feel her heartbeat in her toe" we were coming to the other side of this ordeal. When she was back on her bed, I got on with her and we cuddled. She asked me if it was okay for me to be on the bed with her to which I replied, "Mommy makes her own rules when it comes to her babies. If you need me here, then YES, it's more than okay."
After a long afternoon into evening, Virginie ended up losing her toenail and getting five stitches to close her toe. A piece of antibiotic gauze was put in place to hopefully facilitate regrowth of her nail. She will have to get a boot to walk and is taking antibiotics to protect against infection. Sutures, rather than stitches, were used to close her toe because, as the doctor said, "This is not like the stitches in her chin that we put in to allow minimal scarring. This is her toe and it needs more time to heal. If it scars, it's in a place where no one can see it...unless she is wearing sandals." She'll have her tiny scars tucked on her foot, shared only with those she allows close.
And so will I. Teeny, tiny little scars made each time I see them hurt, whether on accident or on purpose, lacerate my heart. I will see the stitching, the jagged lines where the skin came back together. Those are for the physical ouches. And of the psychological tears? The emotional punctures? Hidden wounds? As she lay on the suturing table, wrapped in the cocoon to prevent her from moving, fear, frustration, pain on her face, I put my nose to hers, felt her eyelashes on my cheek, and whispered to her about the unicorns and sweets we think about before we dream. We talked about how we were together and how I would never leave her, would always be nose to nose, eyelashes to cheek, butterfly kisses, even when I wasn't really there. She quieted herself, went inside, and she believed me. She trusted me. Even in her hurt she believed that I would give her everything I had, that I was somehow feeling her pain or that I would at least walk with her through it. Comfort.
My husband is not here and we are not having a crazy display of elegant foods. I won't drink a mimosa in bed, nor will I sit with my feet up or even sleep past 6:45 am. I won't play queen for a day or do "something special for myself," at least not the kind of special that many believe moms are looking for. I am relieved that my girl is alright. I am proud of myself for getting in the car and driving her to the hospital and keeping a cool head. I am grateful for the people in my life who know what an accomplishment that is for me.
While sitting in the emergency room before Virginie was seen by a doctor I thought, "My baby will be scarred. She's only six years old and something is already broken. Her perfect little feet, her tiny toenails are gone." Yes, I know it's ridiculous. When they are those cute, little cherubs, smooth-skinned and innocent, we try so desperately to keep them clean of wounds, bruises, hurts. They are the best of us, the good in us, the pure. Each fall, scrape, tumble left me holding my breath, hoping it wouldn't be too bad, that it would heal quickly and leave no trace on their bodies or in their hearts.
Two days after she was hurt, Virginie is hopping on one foot through the house, laughing and smiling and chatting as she always has. Her foot is wrapped and the gauze is looking worse for the wear even after just two days. She's been fixed, is on the mend, will come out unscathed if not unscarred. But it's me, Mommy, who is taking a little longer to heal. Being a mom (for me) means going all the way in. Into the pain, into the hurt, into the past, into the joy, into a depth of love that frankly, nothing in my life before ever prepared me for. It's breaking and putting myself back together all the time. Its carrying the hurt with them and for them. It is doing my best to keep them from being broken.
We're together this morning and we are whole.
Happy Mother's Day.
(c) 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Mine, at least for the past few years, looks more like this: my husband leaves for a beautiful destination of the rich and famous by private jet or souped up, tinted-window SUV to prepare luxury meals and treats for his clients, and I finish out the week of school, activities, play dates, grocery shopping, story reading (now listening since the 6 year old is thrilled to show off her reading), and socializing on my own. It's our rhythm and save the early school drop off on Friday when both girls need to be ready early enough to drop by 8 am, I can and do handle it.
I am too keenly aware of how quickly my children are growing up. Little chubby hands and fat, yummy fingers have become strong and elegant, rolly-poly bodies have elongated into graceful torsos, arms and legs for days, and beautiful faces resting on long necks. I measure time by these changes, recall real life events by growing and falling teeth, short or long hair, training wheels or riding free. In a mother's calendar there are also injuries and ailments as mile markers, moments that stop one's heart, and shore up strengths one did not know were there.
I remember when Lily broke her finger one summer when her cousin was visiting and recall her saying with pride after she'd been X-rayed and splinted, "I can't believe I broke a bone!" She was beaming and proud of her ability to hurt, to suffer, and to endure. She was so human in that moment and she brought my fantasy of being able to protect them, live the hurts for them, take the force of the blow, crashing to the ground. And months later when Virginie, walking with some friends along the creek that either trickles or rages through our town depending on the season, tripped and cut her chin requiring three stitches, I regretted the choice I made to allow her the opportunity to explore and court danger.
It's the delusion I have of shielding my children from life's pains and ills and woes, and physical safety seems a good place to practice. How many times a day do I say, "Be careful! Watch out! Don't touch that! Don't slip! Don't fall! Look out! Why would you do that? You are going to hurt yourself!" And hurt sucks. The iconic images of motherhood show women cuddling and comforting their children, holding them close, wiping tears and touching boo-boo's. The urban mythology of mothers lifting cars, running into burning buildings, staring down wild animals or humans to keep their babes safe only emphasizes this expectation.
When I arrived to a screaming Virginie, hurt on an after-school play date, her middle toe on her left foot smashed by a falling board, I immediately knew it was bad. She was screaming bloody murder. There was blood everywhere. Her tears were fat, her fear palpable, and I needed to make it right. Though I hate driving, especially on any road with more than 2 cars, I packed up my peanut in the car with her favorite things and some warm clothes and raced her to the ER. I carried her in and though I did not scream like Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment", I would have if the staff wasn't so efficient. I hadn't taken the time to truly look at her little toe because I'd gone into autopilot, but now we had time to be together...and I peeked.
She looked at me with those longing, big, brown eyes, eyelashes glued together with tears, and asked, "Is it bad? Is it bad, Mama?"
"It's alright, Peanut. We are going to get you better. These people here are going to help us. Just hold onto Mommy if you feel scared." And she squeezed. And I squeezed back. Also the tears. Her toe looked so, so terrible and it was. I wondered how this tiny thing had suffered, what she must have felt and thought, when pain, pain like that is still relatively new. I thought about all the hurts I'd ever had, all the hurts from which I will need to shield her, all the shoring up, all the armor, and I wished that I could take the hit. I silently prayed, "Why didn't you let it happen to me? Why did it have to be her?" And I became steely because we had hours to go and I was angry and hurt for her and I could only be by her side and bombard her with love and comfort. (Broken)
She was wheeled into a room for an X-ray to make sure that her toe wasn't broken. It was cold in the room and made heavy by the lead aprons we wore to shield our organs from the radiation. Hers was a ladybug. Mine was blue. She lay there on that table, following directions and holding still, tiny tears falling to her ears, balling her hands into fists. She was pulling it together. She looked at me and I smiled and she at me. She got to wheel herself back in a wheelchair (a wheelchair!) to our triage curtain and she beamed. Though she could "feel her heartbeat in her toe" we were coming to the other side of this ordeal. When she was back on her bed, I got on with her and we cuddled. She asked me if it was okay for me to be on the bed with her to which I replied, "Mommy makes her own rules when it comes to her babies. If you need me here, then YES, it's more than okay."
After a long afternoon into evening, Virginie ended up losing her toenail and getting five stitches to close her toe. A piece of antibiotic gauze was put in place to hopefully facilitate regrowth of her nail. She will have to get a boot to walk and is taking antibiotics to protect against infection. Sutures, rather than stitches, were used to close her toe because, as the doctor said, "This is not like the stitches in her chin that we put in to allow minimal scarring. This is her toe and it needs more time to heal. If it scars, it's in a place where no one can see it...unless she is wearing sandals." She'll have her tiny scars tucked on her foot, shared only with those she allows close.
And so will I. Teeny, tiny little scars made each time I see them hurt, whether on accident or on purpose, lacerate my heart. I will see the stitching, the jagged lines where the skin came back together. Those are for the physical ouches. And of the psychological tears? The emotional punctures? Hidden wounds? As she lay on the suturing table, wrapped in the cocoon to prevent her from moving, fear, frustration, pain on her face, I put my nose to hers, felt her eyelashes on my cheek, and whispered to her about the unicorns and sweets we think about before we dream. We talked about how we were together and how I would never leave her, would always be nose to nose, eyelashes to cheek, butterfly kisses, even when I wasn't really there. She quieted herself, went inside, and she believed me. She trusted me. Even in her hurt she believed that I would give her everything I had, that I was somehow feeling her pain or that I would at least walk with her through it. Comfort.
My husband is not here and we are not having a crazy display of elegant foods. I won't drink a mimosa in bed, nor will I sit with my feet up or even sleep past 6:45 am. I won't play queen for a day or do "something special for myself," at least not the kind of special that many believe moms are looking for. I am relieved that my girl is alright. I am proud of myself for getting in the car and driving her to the hospital and keeping a cool head. I am grateful for the people in my life who know what an accomplishment that is for me.
While sitting in the emergency room before Virginie was seen by a doctor I thought, "My baby will be scarred. She's only six years old and something is already broken. Her perfect little feet, her tiny toenails are gone." Yes, I know it's ridiculous. When they are those cute, little cherubs, smooth-skinned and innocent, we try so desperately to keep them clean of wounds, bruises, hurts. They are the best of us, the good in us, the pure. Each fall, scrape, tumble left me holding my breath, hoping it wouldn't be too bad, that it would heal quickly and leave no trace on their bodies or in their hearts.
Two days after she was hurt, Virginie is hopping on one foot through the house, laughing and smiling and chatting as she always has. Her foot is wrapped and the gauze is looking worse for the wear even after just two days. She's been fixed, is on the mend, will come out unscathed if not unscarred. But it's me, Mommy, who is taking a little longer to heal. Being a mom (for me) means going all the way in. Into the pain, into the hurt, into the past, into the joy, into a depth of love that frankly, nothing in my life before ever prepared me for. It's breaking and putting myself back together all the time. Its carrying the hurt with them and for them. It is doing my best to keep them from being broken.
We're together this morning and we are whole.
Happy Mother's Day.
(c) 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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