In April, the ground smushes underfoot, seeping mud and melt. The earth, replenished, spills over, abundant with water in preparation for summer’s toll. Worms peek from the sogginess and wriggle across sidewalks and into flowerbeds pungent with the browness of decay and verdant rebirth. The transition is palpable and invigorating.
My daughter was born in the month of April. Sick, she’d swallowed meconium, and required IV antibiotics. I visited the nursery to nurse her, and we rocked and bonded among blankets and tubes, skin to skin. Although it hadn’t been the day she was born, the evening she was discharged, was warm. The sky and her eyes were blue, and the light lingered for the duration of our drive home. That night, I blew up an egg in the microwave, and I laughed about it--even as I scraped shell and yolk from the ceiling. I was tired and starving, so it seemed efficient--and logical. It was neither. But the key is that, I laughed. And, I did not cry.
My son, four years and four months older, was born in the month of January. My first, born perfect and healthy, a true knot tied in his umbilical cord. He was discharged at noon, just before a snowstorm. I still have the blue dinosaur sleeper and hat he wore home. I remember his first bath, how he curled his fist around my finger, and how his skin pinked beneath my touch--except for his nose. His nose was yellow. His hair, like thistledown, rose and fell with static electricity. And, I recall his screams through the night, screams that seized my heart as if by another kind of electrical current. He shrieked and turned his face from me. I tried to feed him, and he’d choke on milk and anger and tears. I felt helpless. Our bodies stiffened instead of relaxed. My muscles contracted with rigidness at the slightest whimper. I could not soothe my own child. I was overwhelmed by a sense of insignificance and inadequacy, ineptitude, and a profound lack of confidence.
No matter who held him, each time my son cried, they handed him back to me. I yearned for someone to take him--someone more equipped to comfort him, someone who could console us both. I held him and rocked him and nursed him and burped, bathed, and loved him with all that was in me and still he screamed--still he demanded more, and I doubted my capacity to satisfy his demands.
The days were cold and dark. Everyone else went to work, and we slept through most of the day despite my attempts to encourage a schedule. That in itself was exhausting. Night after night, the pattern repeated. I attempted reading through these lonely hours, but fought to stay awake enough to hold the book, and ourselves, upright. It was hard, and I wasn’t succeeding, and that felt like failing.
My sense of humor waned. I wept with helplessness. I cried for no other reason than it felt good to release the tears. In the shower, tears and milk flowed and my body sagged, as if expressing outwardly the condition of my heart. I cried, and I could hear my son’s screams over the rush of water, and a knock on the door would come. Always a knock on the door, because he must be hungry again even though I’d just fed him before I got in, hadn’t I?
An intrinsically shiny person, I had dulled, and I knew that I had dulled, which made it worse. Knowing my normal self, and feeling this dullness--knowing that it wasn’t normal, yet feeling helpless to fix it even if I had the energy to bother to try…. And there was this perfect baby boy who I loved unconditionally from the first flutter--who God gave me so graciously...and all I could do was cry? How does that make a person feel?--to have the answer to my prayers--to love him and feel so intensely thankful and humble and simultaneously incompetent--insufficient--so in love--so intensely sad.
Where then did my purpose lie?
The shift was, and is, huge and sudden. Adjusting from first person center--to allowing someone else to take center stage and becoming first person in someone else’s life…. all overnight. If you have time to think about it, it’s in the least discombobulating and terrifying, but with subsequent children; there isn’t time to think about it, and so there’s no time for fear.
Is it that the fear of the unknown has worn off? Or is it that there’s no time to think long enough to be fearful? Is it that experience takes over and quiets the apprehension? Or is it simply that the sun shines more often in April than January?
The year my son was born, there was so much snow. So much white. So much cold. We didn’t go anywhere--other than to the doctor’s office for well-baby visits. I didn’t tell anyone how I felt. My husband knew. He saw. But speaking something out loud makes it true… and how could I be anything but happy? And I certainly didn’t need anyone to tell me that what I was feeling was wrong. I’d already told myself. I felt weak, selfish, ungrateful, and ashamed. When friends or family visited, I often isolated myself by nursing in my bedroom.
But, although I cannot tell you how it happened, gradually--Gradually, we adjusted, and the world filled with light again. In Spring, we emerged, we visited, we dressed with a purpose, and we lived with intent.
Copyright © 2015. Carrie Ellen
Campbell. All Rights Reserved. http://carriellencampbell.blogspot.com. Please respect Carrie's intellectual property. Sharing
blog posts is permitted, but no part of this material may be copied,
downloaded, reproduced, or printed without express written consent. Contact
Carrie at: carrieellencampbell@icloud.com.
In winter… my purpose was ambiguous beyond the curve of my breast. I was a stay at home mom for a few months, but before, I had known nothing beyond working outside my home. But in the Spring, there was purpose. There were birds to watch, paths to walk, light to share. Even when my daughter slept, I was needed. My son needed me, and that gave me purpose.
Comments
Post a Comment