On Motherhood

Mother's Day isn't really a great day for me. On this holiday two years ago, I arrived home from the hospital after turning my son over to the representative from the funeral home who would be taking care of his remains. I returned home to my daughter, just two and a half, scared and confused about not only my absence from her home, but about the massive shift in the atmosphere around her over the course of that weekend as the news of "Katie's in labor!" turned to, "They lost the baby."

And this year, of course, it falls on the second anniversary of Sam's birth and death. (Two years later and I still never know the best way to phrase that. Was he born? Did he die? Stillbirth bridges those two life events in a way that makes them simultaneous and I never know which one to choose.) As hard as I've tried to dissociate Sam's birthday from Mother's Day, I really can't-- they are inextricably linked in my brain and obviously today they are also linked by the calendar. Neither feels celebratory to me, but here I am, surrounded by people wishing one another, and me, a Happy Mother's Day, even though I don't feel particularly happy about it today and even though I am a mother every day, and lately that's been a really tough job for me.

Today my family is actually having a pretty ordinary day. We're inside because it's cold and rainy in Newport, yet again. (People swear to me that this place is beautiful in the summer but since it's still basically winter here I guess it'll be a while before I know whether these have been lies to try to sell Navy families on this phenomenally stupid set of orders.) Poppy is taking her second nap of the day, which is kind of rare for her, Ellie is watching a movie in the other room and keeps coming up to me to ask for my help in zipping up different princess dresses. Mike ducked out to go to work while things are quiet here, because his job is still demanding and a big dance of balancing work and family even when he isn't working on a ship. These past few weeks have been the start of our evolution from being a navy family enjoying "shore duty" to adapting to the grueling pace and demands of more conventional navy life-- one where Mike is around less, where more of the household burdens fall on my shoulders, where solo parenting becomes more of a norm than an exception. It's drawing my focus more toward the fires that we need to put out here, immediately, than to the larger and harder memories and feelings that surround this time of year for me. I spend so much mental energy in my day trying to validate Ellie's feelings of anger and sadness at leaving the only home she has ever known while also encouraging her to love a new place that she is already aware is very temporary before having to learn to love our next home. I spend my nights awake with Poppy, who is getting a million teeth (okay six but that's a 100% increase in the teeth she has now and she is miserable) and can't seem to settle down for more than an hour or two unless she has my boob in her mouth. Not to mention that I'm dealing with the generic, adulting, logistical aspects of moving out of one home and into another while trying to buy yet ANOTHER home. (One that I've never actually laid eyes on, no big deal. Easy peasy lemon squeazy.)

This mom gig is busy and harried and so extremely demanding, both physically and mentally, especially for these very young children for whom my body is still a comforting home base and for whom my presence and engagement is a constant need. It came with no instruction manual, (though it did come with a lot of crappy unsolicited advice! Stop telling me to put alcohol on my baby's gums, I am not going to be doing that) so I'm just out here winging it every day, which is SO CRAZY, right? Like you become a mother and you're in charge of actual human people and there's still no like, proven method for getting it right. I mean obviously I know that I am supposed to feed my kids, and love them unconditionally, and wash them with some regularity, but other than that my only blueprint for success here is to follow my own instincts and the examples of the women I admire who have done this before me and are doing it alongside me. (Shoutout to all of you, particularly my own sainted mother, who I realized I am turning into this week when I drove by a house that is for sale and literally looked it up online, even though I am not going to be buying a house in this state ever because it is cold.)

It's really hard to think about the ways that Sam has molded me as a mother right now, because being self-reflective in this season of life just frankly feels like a lot of effort when I'm mostly just trying to keep all our balls in the air. But it's really easy for me to see the way he has shaped my daughters. Ellie had to grow up in a big way at such a heartbreakingly young age. She had to absorb the information of her brother's death at the very time when she should have just been absorbing his presence in her world. She, more than anyone else in my life, has been the one to keep him present in our family, always including him in her reckonings of how our family looks and who belongs in it. Without even realizing it she has taken on her role as Sam's big sister in such an easy and admirable way, and the way she is a big sister to her brother has clearly informed her role as a big sister to Poppy as well. From the moment she met Poppy, Ellie has only been gentle and loving and sweet. I mean, obviously she is four so she also melts down any time Poppy is playing with something she'd like to play with, so there's some normal sibling rivalry there, too. But Sam gave Ellie a well of empathy so deep and wide that I cannot even express my pride at being her mother.

And of course Poppy-- she cannot even walk yet but she has walked me, slowly, back into the world that I had retreated from after Sam's death. She hasn't made enduring his death any easier, but she has made the days since her own birth so much sweeter than the ones before it. Her healthy, smiling, growing rolls of baby have injected a bright light into the darkest of life's offerings. Perhaps without her birth I would have eventually found the strength on my own to make my way to a new normal, but I can pinpoint my own shift at her arrival. She doesn't take away the pain of her brother's loss. I didn't have to lose Sam to get Poppy-- I do not think his death was "for a reason." I do not believe in beneficial suffering. But she lightens the load considerably as she takes up some room in our home and a lot of room in our hearts and that's what I was seeking when I set out to grow my family in the first place. Maybe the whole, "you brought me back to life when your brother had died just a year earlier" thing is a really big burden to place on the shoulders of a baby who isn't even one yet, but I don't think I ever actually asked that of Poppy. She just... did it.

Maybe I'm a really great mother-- some lady at Panera the other day seemed very impressed about it because she caught us on an occasion where both Ellie and Poppy were sitting nicely and eating well, and she missed out on all the times where I negotiate how many bites Ellie needs to eat to get up from the table or spill my own food on Poppy's head as I'm nursing her, because she both hates high chairs and is only just getting interested in food I do not quite literally produce myself. But mostly I think I have the good fortune to have really good kids who love one another, and even though I don't always know how to answer a question about how many children I actually have, knowing how well they love one another counts for a great deal.

So happy birthday Sam, who continues to shape my family in ways that are invisible and intangible and invaluable. And I guess Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there who is feeling celebratory about it. If any of you actually DOES know what you are doing, please message me to give me some tips. Thanks.