Post-partum depression, people say, and I nod but I don't know. So much more happened than just having a baby (which is hardly a "just"). I gained and lost more than the parts that most women gain and lose when they have a baby.
In that year, I lost my safety and security, pieces of my identity, even my home. Some of it was taken, and some of it I just gave up and walked away, the effort to hold on no longer worthwhile.
And yet I wish . . . I wish I had looked into my daughter's face and felt peace and hope, not terror. I wish those baby smiles had brought joy, and not just a temporary abeyance of fear. I wish I'd loved her as well on the inside as I did on the outside.
Now I carry another little one, a tiny soul who needs a mother who knows who she is, and I still don't know. I wonder, sometimes, what I'll see when I look in this set of eyes.
I suppose that's what love is, at this stage: wondering who this child will be and how I will respond, wondering what it will be like to hold another baby, wondering what our family will look like when another little soul joins us.
It's a weird love, complete and yet entirely uncompleted, present and yet so dependent on the future. I know myself here, even though having another child means becoming lost again. We will wander for a while, I suppose, and then we will know ourselves. Stronger, because there's strength in the wandering.
5 comments:
This is so deep and so heart-felt, thanks for sharing. To me it comes as a very important reminder of the need to DO what's right (including love) even when we don't feel it or feel like we know how. Easier said than done, I know, but there it is, huh? Thanks.
ahh dear sarah, this is poignant and beautiful. there is finding in this losing, there is humility and needing him all the more... love from afar, sister...
Not all who wander are lost. I forget who said that. I've read elsewhere that the journey always begins and ends with home. And I trust that you will find it. Home. Who you are, your place of belonging. I trust.
I have wondered what it is like for you to be inside this new pregnancy, anticipating this new life in your world, especially since the last time was so confusing and hard. I am praying grace and peace and exuberant love for you through this.
Oh, Sarah, I did not know. It's such a deep-rooted thing, this mothering. Our very bodies changed forever, they are carried deep in the marrow. You may not know who you are...that may change many times in life...but know this: You are loved. Love covers so much. Hold on to that. This wondering is a beautiful thing. Praying for you and this little life you hold. Love to you.
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