What a strange thing it is to wake up one morning with nothing but small beige bandaids on your back and wrist to remind you of the most painful, exhilarating and rewarding experience of your life... And nothing but a few stretch marks and unwanted pounds to remind you of the one thing that has defined you for the last 9 months of your life.
Pregnancy and labor are surrounded by a culture of support amongst woman, a culture of comrodery and stories and advise. We don't mind talking about the nitty gritty of breastfeeding, diaper rashes, labor recovery and beyond, and don't get us started on product recommendations, vaccinations, or feeding schedules... We can talk about these things for hours. But we so rarely make mention of the vastly emotional experience that motherhood is... And I don't just mean the stuff about loving your kids more than you imagined possible or feeling overwhelmed and frustrated more than you imagined possible. There is also an incredibly surreal, passionate, evasive, complex set of emotions that come with motherhood, and I think they are highlighted at the birth of each child.
For me, motherhood is a clothes line of moments strung out between wooden pins, still-frame images that define everything in-between. A child's first smile or steps, or a moment shared between the whole family abruptly and unexpectedly on a sunny day between doctor's visits and chores. Watching them sleep after the longest of long days, when I swore I couldn't wait to shut their door. And the bad moments are in there too... Agonizing over a child's sin and feeling tears prick my own eyes as I am forced to disapline for the 10th time. The feelings of sinking loneliness when faced with two dirty, exuberant faces for another 10 hour day by myself. The exhaustion of being that mom in the grocery store loosing control of her children like so many apples spilling off the produce counter. And on and on it goes- highs and lows, good and bad, lovely and ugly all mixed together airing out to dry on my memory line.
But births are different. Births yank me out of that rhythm and remind me that there is life outside the constant ups and downs of my roll as a mother, and give me a fresh perspective on the entire world around me. In a birth, you are not just a mother bringing a child into your world to nurture and love along with the others. In a birth, you are an astonished observer of something far outside of your own life. You become the audience for a moment and can only marvel at what is happening through you. At the time of a child's birth I am very aware of the fact that no child will every truly be mine- at best we have them on loan while God uses us to mess them up or help them out in their own unique ways before sending them out on their own paths. A birth is something that happens in the life of a mother, but it is a bigger event in the life of the child, though they will never remember it.
And now, three months later, the experience of that birth is already much faded. Already the intense gratitude for pain medication is being replaced by regret that I couldn’t deliver naturally. Already I’m knee-deep in diets and exercise programs, sighing and sometimes crying over stretch marks and fleeting youth instead of marveling over what my body can do. And already this little miracle placed in my arms is just another part of the family, too often to be shuffled around amid the chaos with the sole goal of being kept quiet.
Today she laughed for the first time- a little splash of a giggle that washed over me more like a tidal wave. One small reminder that this fussy, messy, inconvenient little bundle is actually a real live person with thoughts and feelings of her own.
Perhaps this is what so attracts us to youth... the great unknown. Youth caries with it the promise of a true beginning, the only true beginning we will ever have. Like Ann-with-an-E's proverbial tomorrow, youth is a blank canvas of hope and prospect and big-ness, with no mistakes in it yet. Generation after generation lives to more or less see those hopes fall short, and yet we keep looking at our little ones with tenacious excitement for the lives they will also fall short of living.
But God.
With God, there is hope of making something out of all this nothing- a life surrendered freely and openly to Him is worth something. Personally and cosmically.
And He is kind enough to give us moments, like births, when everything seems as big and full and happy as we thought life should be. Or maybe it does’t just seem that way, maybe it actually IS. Even if just for a while.
I know someday the happy drumming of bare feet against hardwood will turn into shuffling flip flops on their way out the door, leaving more than coming back. I know these children can’t possibly live up to the bright and hopeful future I have envisioned for them- nobody could. But for tonight, I am content to know that I’m in a stage of parenting where the worst I have to complain about is the wear and tear on my own body- the exhaustion of each day and the deeper exhaustion of pregnancies and breastfeeding. I’m thankful to be in a season of hope. And I think that these hopes will slowly be replaced by deeper trust in God as these children grow older and I have to turn them over more and more to His care. Until then, I give thanks for big dreams and big prayers that for now must go unanswered.
No comments:
Post a Comment