Simple
A poem of love and identity - Day 11
“How hard could it be?” I said aloud to a mother The weekend before I Became one, before The four arrived that Wet March afternoon, Arrived and never again Left. She had natural Bug eyes but they Made a real effort To outperform themselves In reply, her soft Mouth agape, And the truth is Truly true: One cannot know What one does not Know until one Falls into it Oneself.
Everything I write about being a mother has the undercurrent of love and awe for Colin, pictured above in December 2009, when he could still scoop all of the children up at once. I think this is the only photo I have to prove it.
The mother mentioned in this poem is Sarah Miller, an old friend from UUCGB whom I don’t have much contact with anymore. She was so supportive of me during that first year, those first weeks! She took me on an epic Target shopping trip for things I had no idea I needed before the kids arrived, like pasta pickups, and pull ups, and a potty chair.
Most parenting happens sort of gradually — ours did not. We are not heroes, just people who wanted to be parents and who found ourselves in the path of these four lives in desperate need of help.
One thing is true about being a parent: it’s a roller coaster one can never exit.
Once you are on, you are on, for life.
I believe this is true even for parents who try to escape. My friend John’s father abandoned the family when John and his younger sisters were little. John told me about meeting up with his father as an adult, after Dad had remarried.
“How did it go?” I asked.
“All right,” he said, and not much else.
Dad’s presence hung over John’s life like a long shadow. John has almost never refused anyone who asked for help. And even in those thin moments when he wanted to leave his wife for the great unknown, he couldn’t do it.
He would Never. Abandon. Anyone. Even if it killed him.
There’s no extracting one’s connection to their child. Whatever label one is given (bio, adoptive, “real,” absentee, baby daddy, helicopter, uninvolved, neglectful), the powerful wound of parenting never heals.
A parent’s unbreakable bonds earn us many titles — many made with “-er” endings:
healer, mother, father, provider, caregiver, maker
Words made by transforming minute-to-minute verb work into our cemented, unique, nominative identities.
Day 11 of National Poetry Month, but also of 100 Days Project, inspired by Suleika Jaoud of The Isolation Journals.
Poet Amanda Roth gave me this word prompt: “simple.” Amanda is a mother and crushingly beautiful poet from Austin who recently published her first book A Mother’s Hunger.
love to you!!!