The Mother’s Load
I’m laying in bed with my baby, nursing her to sleep like the experts tell you not to do, but she has already tripled in size from this time last year and her feet won’t be small enough to fit in my hand much longer, so I do it anyway. I can hear the fireworks outside from all sides of my house of people celebrating America’s birthday late into the night and I open an app on my phone to see a video of three children, newly orphaned, covered in blood, bandages, and ash after surviving an attack on their home, an attack that killed their parents, an attack on their home that killed their parents with bombs sponsored by the same America that everyone is celebrating with fireworks. For a moment, I’m holding my breath, trying not to let out the whimpers building in my chest, because I don’t want to wake up my own baby, my baby who's sleeping in my arms, safely with her belly full, simply because of where she was born.
I instinctively look away because the pain is too sharp and I feel like a coward because it cannot compare to the pain that these children have suffered and will continue to suffer, so I force myself to watch, to bear witness to the suffering, and I feel the full weight of my sleeping baby on my arm, and to myself I whisper, “Please, have mercy”, because I refuse to pray to any God that would allow this to happen.
The next morning I am making breakfast for both girls. My oldest asks for pancakes, but we are out of flour, so I offer French toast instead, but she declines, saying instead she would like my “world famous meatballs” that we had the night before. It’s a slow morning during the 3rd of her 12 summer breaks she will have in her childhood which means that the rules around what is and isn’t on the menu at mealtimes are different. While in the kitchen I get a news alert about 20 (later up to 27) 8 and 9-year-old little girls, the same age as my oldest, who are missing (later confirmed to be dead) after being washed away in the middle of the night in an unprecedented flood while away at summer camp during what would have been the 3rd or 4th of their 12 summer breaks they would, should, have had. The high-water marks and memories of the flood that devastated my own community not even a year ago are still vivid in my mind.
I instinctively flip my phone over, because the pain is too fresh and I feel like a coward because it cannot compare to the pain these parents have suffered and will continue to suffer, so I continue to read updates throughout the day, holding my breath for any good news, and I sit at the table while my oldest enjoys my “world famous meatballs”, and to myself I whisper, “Please, let them be safe”, because I do not trust any God that would unleash the horror of a flood.
On that same day I am reading a book about World War II and the 31 Bedford Boys of Bedford, Virginia, the first to arrive and the first to die on Omaha Beach on D-Day, torn to pieces by the German MG-42 machine gun like wet pieces of paper. Of those 31 sons, 20 wouldn’t make it off Omaha Beach. I read the accounts of survivors recalling the cries of wounded soldiers calling out for “Mama” and the word hits me viscerally. Every mother knows there is a difference between being called “mama”, “mommy”, and “mom”. Every mother’s ear is trained for those words, to know the meaning or level of urgency when said in a different pitch or with a different inflection.
I instinctively close the book because the tears come quickly and I feel like a coward because it cannot compare to the pain these soldiers and their families have suffered and will continue to suffer, so I continue to read the book, grieving for the generations destroyed by war, and I continue to enunciate “MA-MA” to my baby whose muscles of her mouth are still learning to make “mm” sounds, and to myself I whisper, “Please, bring them peace” because too many children of mothers have died fighting wars in God’s name.
The Mother’s Load is recognizing everyone as someone’s baby and grieving, celebrating, and worrying for them all as your own. It’s having your heart broken by news alerts of dead children during breakfast and feeling guilty for being a little sad that your toddler isn’t a baby anymore when there are parents who wish that was what they could cry about, but you can’t spend too much time thinking about it because we’re running late for summer camp and we can’t find our shoes. It’s the fear of the future, the fear of sending them to school, the fear of hurricane season, the fear that when they get older people won’t recognize them as my babies anymore because their wrist creases are gone and their feet don’t fit in my hand anymore. It’s the responsibility you feel for the safety of all children in the world plus the laundry, the birthday invitations, and your day job. The Mother’s Load is the weight of the world - so heavy, so ever-present, so exhausting, that I whisper to myself, “I wish for all mothers to have mothers” because, I imagine, if we could all be held by mothers, the way I hold my babies in my lap and read them a story (and another and another and another), that the world might not feel so heavy.