The Best Year

 On the first day of this year we knew enough of you to dream of you, knew enough of you to buy tiny socks, start a list of names

The spring went slow, tears, and the world contracted and grew small while some strange disease crept in, and still you grew, and I did the same

Summer was hot and you were active, resting only when I walked, and so I walked and walked and walked, and wondered what it would be like to walk with you

You were born fighting a battle we couldn't see, life wrapped 'round your neck three times, I've never been able to think long on that, I hope you'll forgive my inability to imagine life without you

Since you joined us the world caught fire, more disease, more fear, more worry for what the future will bring

But hope, too. And green grass to lay you down in, tiny toes with tiny toenails flexed to feel the tickle, wind to cross your cheek as you swing

So few have held you. We've had to tell you of their love, promise that they smile behind each mask, that they pray to God and saints on your behalf, that there are hugs to look forward to.

It has been a year of weeping, of exhaustion, of loneliness.  But it has been the best of all things, too, the deepest of all joys, the wildest of all loves. It has been milk and sweat, the weight of you in my arms, the perfect curve of your smile. It has been the best year, this year of you. 

Scares

 A couple months ago, upon inspecting a freckle at my hairline, I felt a deep, insistent nudge to get it checked. The freckle had been there for ages but recently appeared darker.  Were I not a new mom, I might have ignored that nudge. I might have chalked it up to too much time in the sun and a need for new bangs. But the dependence of a tiny person made me worry and that worry may have saved my life. 

The melanoma was thin, removed with a 45 minute procedure that was more stressful than painful. The only lasting effects are numbness in my scalp, which should fade over time, and a scar nobody will notice but me.  The days waiting for pathology results were the worst, wondering if I'd need another procedure, wondering if the cancer had spread, wondering what stories my husband would tell our son if I died before his first birthday. 

It was enough of a scare to make life feel more precious, even in the middle of this exhausting pandemic. Even isolated, even without the ready comfort of family and friends, even though Truman has only been held by his aunts and uncles with masks on, even though every day feels like a long Tuesday, even in this slog life feels holy. 

There's a part of me that always struggled with the idea of motherhood because it seemed like a state of being that required full dismissal of self. As in, I'd no longer get to be Rachel because henceforth I'd have to be Mom. But the reality is more nuanced. I see him and I think, "I exist so that you exist." My ambition has been tempered by his smile. Work no longer feels like a goal in and of itself, but a means to an end and he's the end. I still enjoy the way I get to use my brain,  but I prefer to think of him and not solar subscription agreements. But that doesn't feel like a loss of self, just a new alignment of priorities. And the scare of the last few weeks, the scabs largely gone, the scar pinking up and smoothing out, reminds me that every breath of that existence, his and mine, is a gift. 

My Son

I've stopped and started this post a dozen times.  I'll blame that partly on the demands of a newborn but the truth is writing about my son has felt very heavy.  Heavy in the sense that there's too much carried to lift any one brick for evaluation. The breadth and depth of motherhood (not to mention experiencing motherhood in the context of a pandemic) has swallowed me, made words float far away on a surface I can see but not quite touch. Even my prayers have been stunted, short and desperate (help him grow! protect him! help me!), pleas have been all I could muster under the twin burdens of terror and euphoria. 

While pregnant with Truman, even after he started routinely kicking me in the ribs, his existence seemed tenuous, like any morning I might wake up and it would have all been a dream.  With each week I allowed myself an incremental addition of joy, knowing I was closer to feeling him in my arms.  But even at the hospital, pacing and wincing and generally terrifying my husband, Truman still felt like a cloud of hope, a puff of smoke that a stiff breeze could dissolve. He didn't feel solid until he was placed on my chest after surgery. I couldn't lift my arms on my own and the combination of drugs and hormones made me shiver violently, my teeth chattering as Chester and the nurse helped me hold him. He was warm and sleepy, exhausted by his ordeal, and the first sensation I felt as I regained feeling in my arms was his tiny, wet breath. He was here and real.

Today brought the first breaths of autumn, a brisk wind racing between sunbeams, and as we sat outside Truman would inhale sharply, then smile, when the wind rustled his hair.  I have never felt more firmly tethered to a place than I did in that moment, watching my son feel his first windy day, my feet in the grass of our backyard, my fingers smoothing the edge of his blanket. We exist together, my son and I, his father beside us. Our hearts beat and we feel the wind blow and we watch the leaves make shadows. He is here and real, and I get to love him for the rest of my life. 

Fragile

I have rarely lacked confidence in my ability to get things done. I have a healthy stockpile of self-doubts, but my ability to act and decide and plan and put plans in motion is not one. This has served me well in many contexts. It has made me a good lawyer, a good provider, a good payer-of-debts. It has helped me help others and fix problems big and small.  I am a developer of Plans of Attack and a checker of all the boxes. But pregnancy in a pandemic has shattered everything.

I know from experience that pregnancy, every pregnancy, feels disorienting.  On Monday your body is your own.  On Tuesday it is shared sacred space. We've been here before. Twice before. And while those pregnancies ended, they were long enough to disrupt what I could and could not believe about my body.  They were long enough to love someone and lose someone. They were long enough to love and hate what was in the mirror. They were long enough to be surprised by how resilient our flesh can be, suffer and still wake up whole, suffer and still wake up and go to work, suffer and still go to happy hour, suffer and still hope.

After losses, pregnancy feels especially tenuous. My only experience of pregnancy thus far has been destruction and loss, so to be in this new world of good news, healthy ultrasounds, kicks and somersaults after supper, feels beautiful and fragile. To know he's a boy, growing into a boy body, with boy elbows and knees in my stomach, means there's so much more to imagine and cherish, so many daydreams of dirt and baseball and laughter and boat rides, so much more to be lost. He is pictured, not more loved than his lost siblings, but certainly more concrete. He is possible and probable, and that makes the risks loom larger.

But he is an anchor now, too. We cannot drift too deeply into any sea of despair because there are bassinets to research, child care options to discuss.  There are nurseries to daydream and names to debate. We may be isolated, a bit stuck, and bruised by the disappointments and fears of this current storm, but we are constantly reminded by a tiny person we love that the future must come, too. And he doesn't care if Mom doesn't have baby showers, or if the new house isn't quite put together, or if he even has a "new" house to come home to in the first place. He'll just be here. We love him for just being here, just existing. And that love is not fragile, it is fierce.