By Natasha Hayden
May 15, 2015
Natasha as Mama.
Mother’s Day is a special day, of course, a day to receive little tokens of appreciation from our children or to tell our own mothers how much they mean to us. But I’ve discovered, as a mother of five-plus years now, that there can be a bit of sadness about the holiday, too. Sometimes that sadness is because our mothers are not near or not even on this earth anymore. Sometimes it’s because certain hard memories are associated with the day or simply because we’ve been disappointed in the past. Often it’s because of our wants: our petty desires or our deep longings, both.
Mother’s Day comes with all these complicated emotions because it celebrates something that is life-changing and all-encompassing. Evidence of such change in my own life was that when I became a mother, I found I had a hard time writing stories about anything else, processing my reality through fiction. For example, I once wrote a story about a spy mother leading a double life (like Amira in Jaysynn’s story, though I cannot claim authorship of that); it contained bits of reality from my own life (not the spy part, sadly!). The short story I did write for CotW is also about a mother, one with regrets.
The story I am hesitantly sharing with you in this blog is one far more personal than those. I wrote it more than five years ago, during a time of my life when Mother’s Days were dismal, when the deep longing of my heart was to be a mother and when more than two years of trying ended in two miscarriages. It depicts pretty much what happened to me the first time I was pregnant, with only names and minor details changed (or cut for modesty’s sake). I wrote it to remember, and I give it to all the mothers who grieve and all the mothers who were meant to be but aren’t. It’s not happy. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to make a connection, to let you know, if you have experienced loss or emptiness, that you are not alone. And while another happy, commercialized holiday passes us by, let’s be real a minute. Life–motherhood being just one aspect of that–is tough, and sometimes you just need someone else to shoulder the load a bit and hold your hand while you cry.
[Disclaimer: The story linked here may not be for everyone. It contains details straight out of my journal and is occasionally mildly graphic, from doctor’s exams to bathroom scenes. I believe I have censored the most offending sections and apologize if it is not enough. Read at your own discretion.]
Perhaps this seems like a strange story to share with you, our readers at Children of the Wells. It’s not that we relish telling depressing tales (right, Nick?). We’re more about reflecting all of life, ups and downs, about shining hope into the darkest night. As you read, you will find sadness, even despair, but we want our stories to reveal a way to live through and beyond it, something I’ve noticed the modern story often lacks. We aim to strike closer to the truth, which isn’t about attaining an ideal or fatalistically accepting what life hands you. Whether you read my personal story, linked above, or the fictional stories we create for CotW, you will find honesty, raw and aching but also beautiful, hopeful. A mirror of motherhood, I think, but also a reflection of the daily struggle of life on Earth.
