Love, Your mother

Dear Child,

Out of all the souls dispatched, breathed into lifeless clumps inside wombs of women in the different parts of the world- tall and short, dark and fair, rich and poor- you found your way to me. After years of trying and weeping and being seen as incomplete, just when I’d given up, you turned up.

And I rejoiced.

We didn’t want to know whether you would be a cute little boy or girl. It didn’t matter to us how your chromosomes were arranged. We just wanted a healthy little bundle in our arms. Your presence within was like a switch that turned off all my other priorities. All I cared about was you. I read journal after journal on how to care for you while you stayed inside mama’s womb and discusses with your dad how to raise you once you are out. I shopped for your clothes with my girlfriends. I picked names that mean something good without placing undue expectation on its bearer. I fantasised about our cuddles and playtime. So in my head were you that I forced myself to drink one bitter tonic after the other, popped folic acid like candy, and tried all the homemade concoctions that promised me that you would come out healthy.

So I don’t know why you decided you wanted nothing to do with me. Where did I go wrong? Didn’t you like your tiny home inside me? Didn’t I make you comfortable? The doctor handed me reports that were filled to the brim in science jargon that meant nothing to me. It didn’t matter that you weren’t ‘viable’ or a ‘risk’. All that mattered was that in one instant I was a mother without a child.

How do I explain to others who question my grief that even though I hadn’t seen your face, you were a very real part of me- like another limb. How do I explain that not having a face or a ‘real life’ shared experience with you doesn’t make my grief any less? What do I do with all these castles I built in the air, resting on dreams for our future where you and your father and I live happily ever after? What do I do with those premature dreams?

How do I stop being a mother now that you have left, leaving in your wake a severed relationship that was never fully realised. Am I a former or ex-mother? An ‘Almost Mother’? Or are we still bound by an invisible, indestructible umbilical cord that stretches across this life and reaches into the beyond? I’d like to believe that we are. I am told not to grieve, that you await me at the doors of paradise as a little angel. That hope dims the darkness that took over when you left, ever so slightly. But this grief is my companion for life, this I know for sure. You were taken from me before I could rest my eyes on you, before I could run my fingers over your matted hair or uncurl your tiny palms to count your tinier fingers, before I could gaze into your little eyes and see a future full of love and joy. I didn’t experience any of this, yet my pain was and is real. My pain rests in every pore, it envelops me as whole and leaves me breathless at times. Dear child, mama’s heart never stopped breaking for you.

I don’t need to wave around a birth certificate or a photo album of your childhood to justify my grief to the world. You are still my child. And I am still your mother, even if ‘almost’. Coming into this world was just a technicality you skipped.

Don’t worry though, baby, mama is following the cord. I will reach your end packed with all the cuddles and hugs and kisses we missed out on. Don’t cry, my love, there will be no more pain. I will be there.

Love,

Your mother