Sounds of Motherhood

motherhood.

“It is persistent sound.” I said it so matter-of-factly that she didn’t grasp my meaning. It was my answer.

“I’m sorry, I must have missed something. What did you say?”

“Motherhood – you asked me what it’s all about and I answered it is persistent sound.”
She was too giddied up on progesterone at six months pregnant to understand.

“Let me spell it out for you. First, there is the wailing of an infant. And when he is silently sleeping in the next room, you lie awake to hear his breathing.

“Then there is monosyllabic babbling, which you will love, but the day he is silent when you point to a car and say ‘What’s that?’ you must clap down the fears that he is abnormal or delayed.

“Then you hear padding footsteps across your floor – he will always be running – and you will love the sound until you hear a THWACK and the terrible silence before he cries. The silence will deafen you, stretching seconds into years as his young life falls from your grasp. But when he cries, you know he will be ok and you will chide yourself for such dark and dramatic thoughts.”

My words were like a stun ray her skin was just beginning to perceive. She bit into buttered bread, shake off the tingling effect with a confused smile.

“Before long he will be fully verbal and your ears will be full of sensible and senseless questions by turn. Some you can answer. Some trap you in abstractions he can’t understand. Some, well, some just can’t be answered. And when he learns to talk back, one day you might retort with something harsh. All that night you will choke on the guilt until another merciful soul who has been in your shoes will let you off the hook. You have to make peace with the fact that you will hurt him.

“Love him, and love him loud, because that noise will drown out the pain you cause. Motherhood is persistent sound.”

The expectant woman released a single steaming voluminous tear. I heard it splash on her spoon that sat motionless beside cooling split pea soup. “She can hear it now,” I thought to myself.