LABOR OF MY BIRTH
You waited a long time to tell me the story of my birth. It explains much about you. I thought until today that I understood your rages, those thousands of terrible explosions that stopped children and adults alike mid-sentence and left our hearts pounding up into our throats. All the while our minds would be scattering to find the closest escape.
I thought they were about poverty, frustration, not feeling loved. That's what you always ranted about. Not enough money, too much too do, not enough help. No one loving or understanding you. I thought it was about being locked in the cellar with rats and being the middle child in a family of too many children. I believed that one day my love would touch you, heal you, bring you out of your darkness.
But, today when I heard about the labor of my birth I see it is different than that. You said that you felt nothing. "Nothing. I was just mad. Mad. Mad. Mad at the world." The nurses you said were surprised, "but, they just didn't understand that mad doesn't let anything hurt."
You were so calm talking about it, like it was common and ordinary for a woman to not feel the birth of her babies, not just mine you said, "I didn't feel anything with any of you."
That's when I saw it. When I reached across the table and placed my hand over yours and you only sat staring as if I wasn't touching you. It looks like a huge spinning ball of blinding fire, like pictures of that planet, is it Jupiter? The one with the massive swirling cloud cover only yours is all red and flaming. Is that what drives you? It must. Does it ever quiet itself? Do you ever have any peace?
When you say that you loved us I wonder how. How does a woman love through that horrible burning inside herself? How can she feel gentleness or joy? How can she smile into the face of her tiny babies? How can she feel them smiling at her?
Betsy Foster
© July 2001
Images and templates used on this site are copyright© 2000 - 2002, Edward Hall and GreyLight Internet and Multimedia, unless otherwise noted. Text and writing is copyright© 1988 - 2002 Betsy Foster.
