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What’s the day after Mother’s Day?
Mother’s Day…because once you are a mother…you are always a Mother.
One year ago I had no voice.
Today I am honored and grateful to be able to release the first episode of “UCSF Heart Sounds” a new podcast series produced by Dying To Talk. (Clicking the image below will take you to the podcast’s show page where you can learn more and listen).
I’ve spent many months healing. Relearning how to make sounds so as not to cause pain or re-injury. Learning to find my voice benefits from skilled guidance. (I am ever grateful for my speech therapist, Zoe). Vocalizations become stronger and more intentional with practice.
So in honor of this inaugural release I have created a PSA
installment intentionally focused on all Mothers who have not been given voice this Mother’s Day. Dr. Laura Deering’s story is an act of courage and a gift of Love.When a child dies
a relationship between Mother and child is forced to transform. This is different than the relationship coming to an end.Once a Mother…always a Mother.
Yet, Mother’s Day (as Society at large has conceived of it—pun not intended) has yet to find a way to honor the reality of these transformed relationship. Is it possible to explicitly name—give voice to the relationships we have silenced out of fear of causing more pain?
I have searched for a noun…initially by writing a poem to help me fathom the unfathomable.
Shedding
An invented word
(aren’t they all--)
to fill the void of
speechless silence
Black sheaths shroud
faltering footsteps
of Widows
wife’s soul shadow, tread-less now
Lost tears in eye-filled
fears
of Orphans
children’s shelter vanishing, tilt like hollowed pillars
But what of Mother
now
without son—
still Mother?
How to crack the code of
absent presence
forever present
infinite vacancy filled to capacity
What word can explicate a
heaving hole
bursting
with emptiness
She walks to what she knows
embraces what she can
Unzips the suit of motherhood
and leaves it as a boa would—
cast amongst the jungle floor
skin unmistakably her own
no longer fits
I have wondered for 8 years, 3 months and 6 days
, if a noun existed, would it change things? Could giving voice in a champagne toast to Mothers Of Transformed Relationships ever be received with the Love intended?I don’t know. Yet I suspect far too many of you do know. Perhaps we begin by giving voice to their names….
Thank you for reading. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a Mother. I am so glad you are HERE.
Public Service Announcement. Please see the on that started it all, Mother’s Day Wish.
As it is the day after Mother’s Day, I am using this noun. Additional nouns, such as Grandmother/Father/Grandfather/Uncle or Aunt/Cousin and Friend can also be utilized.
The injury of grief is not isolated to Mother’s as this episode highlights. Strictly for the sake of the PSA, this is the portion of the story upon which I am focusing.
Relationships form the moment a Mother is aware of a child. For many, this includes before birth such that if a child is not able to live outside the uterus for whatever reason, this is no way precludes the existence of a relationship.
Shedding was originally written for my brother-from-another-mother on February 9. 2015. The day his son, Spike, died. The gendered terms have been re-contextualized specifically for this PSA.