Numb to the Loss of Motherhood, or is it Indifference?

Photo by Andre Adjahoe on Unsplash

Whenever I hear stories of really successful people, their lives always seem to consist of 3 parts: Struggle, Dedication, and finally Success. For some reason, I always attributed my lack of success to my lack of struggle. I didn’t grow up poor, I didn’t have to sleep in my car, I didn’t have to work two jobs to pay for college, and I didn’t feel confused and afraid growing up.

In essence, I believed I had lived too good a life to be hungry enough to attain success. It never occurred to me that maybe what was lacking was the second part of the equation — I just was never dedicated enough to put all my energies into one endeavor. Or maybe I was too enamored with life and all of its possibilities to settle on one. Whatever the reason, not only did this affect my career choices, but it also had an adverse effect on my personal life.

I’ve always been of the frame of mind that I would get my career in order first, then fall in love, get married, and finally have children. After being raised in a strict West Indian family, that was the order that was expected.

As most of you would attest to, however, life rarely follows the blueprint you draw for yourself.

I could never quite find the career that fulfilled me, and after a bout of clinical depression, it was hard for me to allow a man into my life to upset the carefully balanced emotions I maintained. After a while, children were not only placed at the bottom of my priority list, but they became an after-thought.

To be honest, I’ve never really felt very maternal — at least not since they showed me that video in 10th-grade health-ed. You know the one I’m talking about. No, not that one. Are you cringing? Yep…that’s the one. The video that was purported to show the joys of birthing, but which I suspect was actually the Department of Education’s version of a lesson in abstinence. That video scarred me for life.

Which is why it was surprising when one morning on my way to work my thoughts inadvertently segued into kids. I suddenly had the thought that I wouldn’t mind having one. Despite my lack of maternal instincts, at 44, this was not a new notion. That day, however, it came with a surprising urgency.

Midway into my mental segue, a woman came onto the train with 3 kids. They were approximately 4, 7 and 11 years of age, and they were loud. Not obnoxiously so, but still irritating at 8 in the morning.

“Mummy, how old am I”?

“Mummy, what train are we on”?

“Mom, mom, mummy!”

I felt as if I had found my way into a Family Guy episode.

I looked at the patient but slightly harrassed mother and thought “Ah hell naw…I’m alright with no kids.”

Be careful what you wish for. A week later I went to the OB-GYN and found out that I needed to have a total hysterectomy. Talk about a twisted kind of foreshadowing.

Everyone kept tiptoeing around me, silently waiting for me to have some reaction or show some emotion. So I also waited….

I”m now 4 weeks post-op and I feel nothing. What does this say about me? Have I just given up hope of finding the happily ever after I was weaned on or was I always destined to not be a mother, even with all the working parts?

Last week I read a poem by an unarmed and murdered black teen, Antwon Rose, written just 2 years before he was gunned down by police on June 19th, 2018.

I AM NOT WHAT YOU THINK
by: Antwon Rose

I am confused and afraid
I wonder what path I will take
I hear that there’s only two ways out
I see mothers bury their sons
I want my mom to never feel that pain
I am confused and afraid

I pretend all is fine
I feel like I’m suffocating
I touch nothing so I believe all is fine
I worry that it isn’t though
I cry no more
I am confused and afraid

I understand people believe I’m just a statistic
I say to them I’m different
I dream of life getting easier
I try my best to make my dream true
I hope that it does
I am confused and afraid

Antwon was unceremoniously shot while running away from a police officer at a traffic stop. I can already hear the choruses of “why didn’t he just comply” from the victim blamers — mostly white men and women who have no idea what it’s like to be a black male of any age growing up in a society that automatically fears you and deems you dangerous on sight. Antwon did.

“I understand people believe I’m just a statistic. I say to them I’m different.” But he wasn’t was he? That 17-year-old boy became a statistic because he was afraid. Afraid of the growing number of police officers who deem themselves as judge, jury, and executioner. No one should die because of fear.

After learning of this tragedy, my thoughts inevitably shifted to his family, especially his mother. We so often uphold black women as being the pillars of strength in our communities, but something like this takes a herculean type of strength. A kind of strength that maybe only mothers have, a strength borne from nurturing a human being inside her womb for nine months. After all, there is no greater power given to humankind than the power to give birth.

We too often ignore what’s happening in our communities unless it directly affects us. The truth is that if we do nothing now to stop this, the rate of these incidences will increase and it will eventually directly affect us.

As Antwon’s mother stated in an interview for ABC:

“Every time you turn on the TV, there’s a young African-American male shot by the police,” she said through tears. “And you say, ‘I feel sorry for them.’ But ‘them’ is me. But ‘them’ is him.”

Parents are not supposed to outlive their children, especially not under circumstances like this. But as we are well aware, in the black community, this nightmare visits black families far too often. Tomorrow ‘them’ could be you.

As the first verse of Antwon’s poem illustrates, he was also aware.

“I see mothers bury their sons
I want my mom to never feel that pain
I am confused and afraid”

The thought of my child being confused and afraid, worried about my pain touches something inside of me, something maternal I dare say. This at a time…. well, let’s just say there is a certain irony in the timing of these maternal feelings.

Now the death of Antwon Rose has made me realize that there is one prevailing emotion that I feel. It’s relief.

One reason for the feeling of relief is that the decision of having children was taken away from me. Sometimes when you reach a certain age, women are made to feel inadequate by others because they have not married or had children. It’s the “why are you still single?” and “don’t you want kids?” questions that sometimes make a woman feel that she is found lacking as a woman. I no longer have to feel that I am not worthy of the title of woman, although no woman should, even if it is her choice.

The other reason is that I never have to go through what Antwon Rose’s mother and numerous others have gone through. Relief that I never have to have that talk that all black mothers have with their sons. Relief that my child will never be called the N word with vehemence and hatred. Relief that my child will never be made to feel like a second-class citizen. And mostly relief that I never have to bury my child.

But it’s a two-edged sword, isn’t it? I also never get to experience unconditional love, birthdays, graduation or first loves. No one will carry on my traits or….The rabbit hole is deep isn’t it?

Maybe in a couple more weeks when the anesthesia wears off I’ll feel more than relief. Maybe then I can mourn the idea of motherhood, but today I’m just grateful for the numbness.

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