It was hypothetical until it happened, but then again, I guess everything is. I knew, at some point, I would enter menopause. And, as that seems to be happening, I had previously been mostly afraid of those hot flashes I saw my mother experience. Those migraines that seemed to come out of the blue. The ones that caused my father to pull off to the side of the road so that my mother could vomit.
I fear that happening, but I never expected this: to be mourning the last egg to fall. The last egg, like all of the other eggs, not chased down by sperm. Each one a spinster egg, really. Picture them all, dressed formally in a tight bun, with dark stockings, a solid handsome face.
It’s been 39 days since my last period, and that last one was an insignificant one-day affair. As I crossed 28, then 30, then 35 – as I counted the days on the calendar repeatedly to see if my calculations were right – I find myself thinking that there will be no more.
Even though I have known for a long time that I would not have children, I have not felt that as a core – deep -- reality until the last few days. What would half of me had become? Would I have had a tomboy named Ellie? Floppy brown hair and a shy smile. Would I have had a thick boy named Will? Strong and happy. The first kid to climb a tree. Maybe a girl named Cooper. Or a boy named Sam. I can see them, tonight, like ghosts floating around my house. These lovely children I would have loved.
When that last egg does not fall, it is easy to ask all of these things: would I have been a good mother? Would I have known how to comfort?” How to challenge? Would I have been capable of giving myself away, something I have not had to do in this life I have led. Is there some part of me that will live on in this world after I am gone, if there are no children that follow? Has what I have done mattered at all? How is this a life, really, without love – the making of love, the giving of love, the rituals of love, the passing down love, the daily mess of love, the spaghetti twist of love, the clumps of dirty handed love that children give?
Does anything I have said matter without those exchanges -- those sentence bites of love, that do not even look like love at all? Brush your teeth. Let me comb your hair. Snuggle here with me. Get your library book. Hold my hand. Eat your broccoli. Wipe your face. Say “thank you.” I will rub your back before you go to sleep. Socks before shoes. Let me kiss that boo boo. Hmmm. Has my life been anything without boo boos to kiss?
I thank God for the children I have been able to know and love. The ones that reach for me like a third parent. The ones who call out. Find me. Let me spread some of my unused love on them.
But tonight, I am wondering who my children might have been. I am wondering about their little feet. The curve of their ears. The sound of their voices. What we might of said to each other. What we could have been for each other. How wide my heart would have had to become, stretched by the lives of others. Sprung open wide.
No comments:
Post a Comment