A SALUTE TO MOMS ABLE TO CARRY ON
BY: Erma Bombech
May 13, 1995
If you’re looking for an answer this Mothers Day on why God reclaimed your child, I don’t know.
I only know that thousands of mothers out there desperately need an answer as to why they were permitted to go through the elation of carrying a child and then lose it to miscarriage, accident, violence, disease, or drugs.
Motherhood isn’t just a series of contractions; it’s a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel responsibility to protect and defend that human being. It’s a promise we can’t keep. We beat ourselves to death over that pledge, “If I hadn’t worked through the eighth month.” “If I had taken him to the doctor when he had a fever.” “If I hadn’t let him use the car that night.” “If I hadn’t been so naive, I’d have noticed he was on drugs.
The longer I live, the more convinced I become that surviving changes us. After the bitterness, the anger, the guilt, and the despair are tempered by time, we look at life differently.
While I was writing my book, “I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise,” I talked with mothers who had lost a child to cancer. Every single one said that death gave their new lives meaning and purpose. And who do you think prepared them for the tough, lonely road they had to travel? Their dying child. They pointed their mothers toward the future and told them to keep going. The children had already accepted what their mothers were fighting to reject.
The children in the bombed out nursery in Oklahoma City have touched more lives than they will ever know. Workers who had probably given their kids a mechanical pat on the head without thinking that morning were making calls home during the day to their children to say, “I love you.”
This may seem like a strange Mothers Day column – a day when joy and life abound for the millions of mothers throughout our country. But it’s also a day of appreciation and respect. I can think of no mothers who deserve it more than those who had to give a child back.
In the face of adversity we are not permitted to ask, “Why me?” You can ask, but you won’t get an answer. Maybe you are the instrument who is left behind to perpetuate the life that was lost and appreciate the time you had with it.
The late Gilda Radner summed it up pretty well. “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned the hard way that some poems don’t rhyme and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”
"Hope" is the thing with feathers...
That perches in the soul...
And sings the tune without words...
And never stops at all.....
(Emily Dickinson
Gail, thank you for the beautiful and heartfelt words! I have received sympathies from people who say things like "it must be difficult" or "I know how you feel" but when I ask how they were able to work through the loss of their child they reply with something like "oh, I have never lost a child but I can imagine". I have literally quit going out and taking phone calls. I will only talk to certain family members and I only communicate with all others via email or text. I know they mean well but it just makes me angry because "you cannot imagine the pain and suffering I am going through"! The best sympathies I have received are store bought sympathy cards that have been signed with love, prayers and thoughts. Sometimes less is better.
My thoughts and prayers are with you, too.
Thank you Karen. Do appreciate your kindness. My eldest son was born on Feb. 6th and died on Feb. 8th. My younger son was found dead the morning of Feb. 2nd.
Diana, Grief Recovery Coach
May 9, 2009
Gail Richardson
BY: Erma Bombech
May 13, 1995
If you’re looking for an answer this Mothers Day on why God reclaimed your child, I don’t know.
I only know that thousands of mothers out there desperately need an answer as to why they were permitted to go through the elation of carrying a child and then lose it to miscarriage, accident, violence, disease, or drugs.
Motherhood isn’t just a series of contractions; it’s a state of mind. From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel responsibility to protect and defend that human being. It’s a promise we can’t keep. We beat ourselves to death over that pledge, “If I hadn’t worked through the eighth month.” “If I had taken him to the doctor when he had a fever.” “If I hadn’t let him use the car that night.” “If I hadn’t been so naive, I’d have noticed he was on drugs.
The longer I live, the more convinced I become that surviving changes us. After the bitterness, the anger, the guilt, and the despair are tempered by time, we look at life differently.
While I was writing my book, “I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise,” I talked with mothers who had lost a child to cancer. Every single one said that death gave their new lives meaning and purpose. And who do you think prepared them for the tough, lonely road they had to travel? Their dying child. They pointed their mothers toward the future and told them to keep going. The children had already accepted what their mothers were fighting to reject.
The children in the bombed out nursery in Oklahoma City have touched more lives than they will ever know. Workers who had probably given their kids a mechanical pat on the head without thinking that morning were making calls home during the day to their children to say, “I love you.”
This may seem like a strange Mothers Day column – a day when joy and life abound for the millions of mothers throughout our country. But it’s also a day of appreciation and respect. I can think of no mothers who deserve it more than those who had to give a child back.
In the face of adversity we are not permitted to ask, “Why me?” You can ask, but you won’t get an answer. Maybe you are the instrument who is left behind to perpetuate the life that was lost and appreciate the time you had with it.
The late Gilda Radner summed it up pretty well. “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned the hard way that some poems don’t rhyme and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”
"Hope" is the thing with feathers...
That perches in the soul...
And sings the tune without words...
And never stops at all.....
(Emily Dickinson
May 10, 2009
Laura Villarreal
My thoughts and prayers are with you, too.
Jul 17, 2009
Dee Dee
He was trying so hard. My heart is broken
Sep 22, 2009
Trudy F. Evans
Jan 28, 2010
Pastor Jenine Marie Mason
May 16, 2010