MotherFromAnother

“Our capacity to move forward as developing beings rests on a healthy relation with the past. Psychotherapy, that widespread method for promoting mental health, relies heavily on memory and on the ability to retrieve and organize images and events from the personal past. We carry our wounds and perhaps even worse, our capacity to wound, forward with us. If we learn not only to tell our stories but to listen to what our stories tell us—to write the first draft and then return for the second draft—we are doing the work of memory” (Patricia Hampl, p.33, I Could Tell You Stories).

“How could I love this child honestly, unconditionally, if a part of me is afraid of him, of myself—of us? How could I really see who he is and nurture who he is meant to be, with a sheath of doubt shrouding my perceptions of him? And might that not alter his authentic self, the original path he was meant to pave in this life?

I recognize the churning of my own unfulfilled needs, the agony of my longings. It is little wonder that we hold our heart’s desire at arm’s length for fear of having and losing those we love. Surrendering to my baby, I finally realize, is not at all about defeat or loss or weakness. It’s not about letting the baby drive me up the wall or off the road. It is about seeing with the heart.

Surrender is about being open, letting in and offering a depth of love and vulnerability and commitment—in motherhood and in marriage—that I might have previously yearned for at a distance.

In a sense, it is about giving up, giving up the barrier between love and fear. In doing so, I feel more connected—to myself, my son, my husband, God, the history of time. Somehow, sitting here, I feel related to every mother who ever rocked a baby in her arms.

I surrender.”

Let the Baby Drive, Navigating the Road of New Motherhood

By Lu Hanessian

Page 167