The knowing

On Motherhood: Your hands will never be empty

When you turned eight months I wanted to take you on my favorite hike next to the river. The one we swim in every summer and read stories and poems to each other under the rhododendrons. I wanted to show you where we saw the rattlesnake and the spot we swam in three days before you arrived. 

It was July but the river was cold and sharp, the kind of cold that slows the blood and quickens the heart. I waded in slow in a vintage see-through dress from a painter out in Joshua Tree. You kicked as soon as the water touched you and I remember knowing you’d be coming soon.

But we didn’t get to do the hike or read poems or celebrate you in the way we wanted to. And this is a story that I’m not ready to share with you, a letter I’ll keep in a box until I feel like you won’t hurt from its contents. Until I no longer hurt, if ever a time shall come. 

Your grandma could’ve burned the house down with us in it. Your grandma almost killed herself and only god knows how many others. Your grandma got arrested. Your grandma ended up in the hospital. Your grandma almost destroyed our family and our home. 

Your grandma is an addict. And always will be. 

She says it was a fluke. She says she’s not a pill addict. She says she loves you. She says a lot of things.

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Here’s what I know. 

I know that she loves you and she loves me, but it’s a love that we can’t count on. Take it when it’s offered, but don’t yearn for it, okay? Try not to need it. 

You’ll end up with a longing that turns your whole world blue. 

There is nothing wrong with longing, but I never want you to long for love. You’ll never have to search for my love, my darling. It’s there for the taking. Gather it with your hands and your heart. Put some away in a drawer, if you must. Fill the pockets of your jeans and store it between the pages of your favorite books. There will always be more when you need it and your hands will never be empty.

Here’s what else I know.

Love is not enough. 

People will tell you that it is, that it is all you need. But you can’t live off love and love alone. I tried, but I was emaciated. I needed so much more than what was offered. I needed stability, respect, and a sense of belonging. Someone to listen. Someone to see me. 

I needed to be known. 

But I never was, not until I met your dad. I was trapped as that scared little girl in the dark, frantically searching for someone to hold me. Lost under party dresses, denial, and too many Irish whiskeys. Your dad, he not only saw me for who I was, but who I wanted to be. Who I would’ve been if I’d been nurtured, if I’d been seen. Who I would’ve been if I’d been given the time and the space to know myself. If I’d been given the room to become.

I promise that I will always see you, and I know he will, too. 

I will listen to you and talk with you and be quiet with you and laugh with you. I’ll be sad with you and angry and still and loud. I will feel all the things with you, for it is all vital to the becoming.

I promise that I will know you in all the ways that you want to be known.

Caring for you these past eight months, being attuned to your needs, and living in a state of anticipation has shown me the lack that devoured my childhood. Lack of home. Lack of self. Lack of knowing. Knowing where I was going to sleep at night. If Mom was coming back. If we were going to have dinner. The knowing. It forever eluded me. 

But that’s no longer my story and it’s not yours. We are brimming, my love. The beautiful and brilliant fury of plenty. Imperial bounty. I will pour all that is good and kind and true in me onto you and you may do with it as you wish. 

Use it to build a life you’re happy with. 

And when you do, I hope you think of me and feel the knowing in your bones.

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Photo by Riley Libansky

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