Mother’s Day: Not her first rodeo
We are not surprised by an April blizzard, not shocked by a Mother’s Day storm. While not fun or easy, we accept these unseasonable weather events as par for the course. We bed barns, check a little more often, warm chilled calves in the bathtub. Yes, some of these storms are worse than others and go down as legend. “In the spring of ’97…” But most of them bring quips about how “we’ll survive, we always have,” and “we need a good ‘calf killer’ blizzard so we have grass for the rest of them,” and comments about how much we needed the moisture.
We find the storms of life more jarring. The accident, the diagnosis, the disordering of everything normal, the funeral, the hospital stay; these are the equivalent to the April blizzard of 1997 or the October storm of 2013. These drastic deviations from the way we think life should be send us reeling, give us PTSD, and leave us asking unanswerable one-word questions.
“Why?”
“How?”
My journey of motherhood has been anything but ordinary.
“Nobody expects to end up in here,” my NICU nurse said one day, as we watched a group of expectant parents walk past the windows. I was on the inside, for the third time. They were on the outside.
Although I didn’t say it aloud, I remember thinking: “I do.”
While I certainly had my moments of self-pity and plenty of questions (why me? Why this?), by that point I had come to accept that if I wanted to get a healthy baby on the ground and get her “up and sucking” I was going to need some serious medical assistance. A lot of it. A whole team of doctors: my local OBGYN, an OB team at the “big hospital”, perinatologists, radiologists, neonatologists and frequent consultations with an out of state expert on a very, very rare condition. Tests that felt like they happened “every day and twice on Thursday,” to quote Winnie the Pooh.
And I knew we needed to spend time in neonatal intensive care. Which is just a few steps beyond sledding in calves during a blizzard and warming them by the woodstove… But I accepted that this was my reality. It wasn’t my first rodeo.
Motherhood challenges us over and over to step up our game: mentally (dentist appointment next week, choir concert Thursday, track meet Saturday, there’s a feed bill to pay by tomorrow, someone needs to feed the bottle calf, I need to put the laundry in the dryer, what is burning?), medically (is it broken or just bruised?), educationally (algebra, anyone?), nutritionally (no, eating dog food or milk replacer never hurt anyone; yes, frozen pizza or cereal and milk is quite acceptable for supper), spiritually. There’s nothing like your children to drive you to your knees and teach you to pray – whether it’s for their safety or for more patience. Motherhood also teaches us to step back, to slow down, to see the world through the eyes of our children, to feel the wonder of discovery, to marvel at ants and feathers and birds’ eggs and dandelions and kittens and lambs, to pet dogs and horses, to read “The Cat in the Hat” for the 2,483,941,706th time, to joyfully revisit (and maybe shed a tear over) old favorites like Charlotte’s Web, Little House on the Prairie, and the Chronicles of Narnia.
Motherhood has taught me the beauty of paradox: exhaustion and exhilaration; softness and toughness; gentleness together with a fierceness to rival any living species. I look at my children and feel the rush of joy – he’s getting so big! And the rush of sadness – he’s not a baby anymore… My children are fully separate beings from me, unique individuals, yet they will always and forever carry my genes. And I have learned that thanks to microchimerism I will always carry their DNA in my cells. While motherhood is a constant journey in letting go it is equally a constant holding on and never letting go.
Hallmark would like us to think Mother’s Day means mushy feelings, flowers, breakfast in bed, and buying a card. For me, this day has often held a dose of the bitter along with the sweet. This year is no exception. I’ve been walking the halls of a hospital where I spent several weeks nearly 20 years ago, sitting with a diagnosis that will alter the future in irreparable ways. I don’t know how I will face these coming days, but I do know that it’s not our first rodeo. Those past experiences have already stood us in good stead through this one. I also know that the figurative grandstands are full: our community, friends, family and medical team are all pulling for and with us.
C. S. Lewis said; “To love is to be vulnerable.” Mothers understand this well. And a mother will always choose love, no matter what.
