One thing about parenthood I never anticipated is how much I dwell on the possibility of something awful happening to one of my kids. There's no logic behind this. I am not thinking that if I think about it enough, that it won't happen. I am not thinking, period. I'm feeling.
Every once in a while I wake up breathless and sometimes crying from a bad dream. Since I've had my kids, my bad dreams stick closely to the theme of one of my kids doing one of the following:
- getting hit by a car
- dying suddenly of unknown causes
- falling from a height
The night after I had Mazie, the nurses took her to get her newborn workup. She had to be poked and prodded and bathed and tested and retested, apparently. I was a very high-strung, particular new mother who felt the baby should be on or near me 24-7. (I still basically think that, but my perspective has broadened somewhat.) The nurse who came to get Mazie told me she'd be gone for about 40 minutes. Perfect, I remember thinking, she'll be back just in time for her next feeding!
Being utterly exhausted, I fell asleep as soon as the bassinet trundled out the door. Three hours later, I woke up and there was no baby. I shuffled down to the nursery in my hospital gown and peered at the nursery attendants through the narrow strip of reinforced glass in the door. No nurses seemed to care that I was there or that they had kept my baby well beyond her feeding time. I could hear babies' cries filtering out into the hallway. I began to get upset, fearing one of those crying babies was mine. Other nurses arrived from far away and tried to dissuade me from dissolving in the hallway.
I was so 1) afraid of emotional trauma befalling my day-old baby 2) irate that I was ready to fight anybody, even the caring professionals who were just doing their jobs. Mazie and I both survived, but this was my very first Mother Bear Experience. I was completely unprepared for the imperative of motherhood to protect and provide for an infant. The imperative subverted the natural order of my life. Up to that point, I had served mainly myself (I'd made sacrifices of marginal significance). After having a baby, I directed most of my efforts towards her.
The picture I've attached to this shows a chart I made that recorded all of Mazie's states of being, 24 hours a day. The labyrinthine thought process that resulted in this ridiculously anal-retentive product is almost impossible to trace, but it goes something like this: Baby is not happy. Unhappy Baby makes me feel sad. When is Baby happy? Is there any cause? Let's track it and find out. Voila, hand-drawn anal-retentive chart. I was simply trying to read the tea leaves of daily routine to discern some hint of causation.
On another level, the chart was a desperate attempt at control over a fundamentally uncontrollable force - a newborn infant. I craved order; I craved understanding. I wanted to make an A, dammit! But every parent knows there are no A's, not ever. Every day of parenting reminds me to be humbler than the one before. If there's something you can't have control over, it's another person. I knew that already, but the little ones are more erratic, and I am tied to them inextricably, so I'm finding lack of control harder to swallow. I care too much to be out of control.
Oh, I was trying sooooo hard to do a good job in those early months. This was a desolate, confusing, desperate time for me. I don't think I had actual post-partum depression, but I was really close. Poor Richie. Not only was he sleep deprived from his share of taking care of Mazie, he also had a basket case for a wife. I would love to look back on new motherhood fondly. Frankly, the only good thing about it was Mazie. I was in pitiful shape.
Whew!
The reason I went into all of that is to give some background on the intensity of this overwhelming need to protect my kids. And I am explaining that because I've been having my aforementioned death dreams frequently. Last night, I dreamed that one of Mazie's classmates died. I know, awful! I am wrestling with mortality, plain and simple. As a parent, there's just so much you can do. There's a point where you have to let go, for your sanity and for your kids' development. You can be as cautious as reasonably possible (to exclude keeping your child in a bubble, but including keeping them in a car seat until age 8 and not letting them roller skate). You can read Eat healthy, feel great and teach them to brush their teeth and avoid hazards, but you cannot absolutely ensure your kids' survival.
We sing a song in church that pierces me every time we sing it. I'm not sure of the name, but the basic point is "Blessed be the Name of the Lord." It's a simple song of worship, praising God for being there in the hardest times. The bridge is, "You give and take away." Isn't that the truth? I can't get through those lines because every time I start to sing them I am struck in my middle by the people who have been taken away - from me, but mostly from those I love. I don't want to name names, but if I love you and you've lost someone dear to you, I think about you and pray for you when I'm sitting out this part of the song. The song also reminds me to take nothing for granted. But I've just been describing in great detail, it's no less difficult to think of something happening to one of my kids.
I've been ciphering on my difficulty dealing with my kids' mortality for a long while - basically since Mazie was born. Today at church was our pastor's day to preach through the part of the Apostle's Creed that reads, "He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell." One reason I love my religion is that the person of Christ touches every aspect of human experience - especially the really bad times when you have done something you desperately need forgiveness for or when something awful happens due to external circumstances. There is a deep, deep reason behind the sacrifice of Christ being God's only son. God volunteered to experience the absolute worst that human existence can throw at a person: not just death, but also losing someone beloved. Why is this part of it? Because God had to be there - in both places, the dying and the losing, to be here with us. I have to trust that when worst happens, God is there.
It's one thing to understand that God is there in the worst of times, but it's another to allow myself to rest in that fact every day. At this point, it's unclear how much more processing I'll have to do before the low-level terror is gone and the dreams stop. My conscious brain knows where I'm headed, so eventually my subconscious brain should catch up.
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