Hello, My Child

It's nice to meet you.

The Angry Mother by Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Hello, my child, nice to meet you. You are a wish, did you know that, a wish made flesh? I conceived you in my mind before ever you existed in my body, before you came into this world (I remember the day you arrived, I looked outside at the people going by and thought, don’t they know that today the world changed forever?)

Your throat is bound to be sore tomorrow. This fit is an ab workout, maybe I should try it. I am tired today, I am tired every day, but your fists pound the ground, heedless of me. I won’t let you hit yourself but the carpet is fair game. The sounds you make are animal.

When I was a child a hurricane tore through and my mom took me outside in the eye and we looked at the loblolly branches on the ground and the jagged half-trunks, but I only thought hurry, hurry because I knew the storm would return

When you take a ragged breath you say, “Mom, I just want you.” I waste no time but sit and pull you onto my lap, fold my arms around your fat, warm ones and feel your frantic heartbeat and let your hair tickle my nose, I try not to sneeze

Hello, my child, it’s nice to meet you.

A year ago I loved you but I didn’t know you. You barely called goodnight before bed, and never asked for a hug and kiss. You walked into school without looking back and had friends in every grade. Wise folks told me it was a sign that you felt secure.

Why, then, did I wish so badly for the chance to give reassurance? Why did I feel like raising you was too easy, that I was missing it? Was I not exhausted every night from chauffeuring and chefing and remembering prayers and checking spelling?

I would never wish hardship on my child,

Or would I? Because I chose to move you across the country

To a new town and a school where teachers didn’t know your older siblings and I wasn’t friendly with the front desk secretaries and your father hasn’t spoken in front of the schoolboard and we don’t walk into the grocery store and say hi to three people because we can’t bump a wall without seeing someone we know.

And in this new school you didn’t know that when you walked down the hall you had to stay on the line, or when the PE teacher told everyone to run to the dots, they were the ones on the near side of the room not the far, why are you the only one over there?

You made a friend but she said bad words

You attracted a bully because there was no one to stand up for you but you

So your heart broke open and bled onto the floor of our new home, baptizing it with the fleshy bits of you. When you said, “Mom, I just want you,” my own torn heart crawled to yours and pressed itself against it until your bleeding and mine intermingled.

Mother’s Kiss by Mary Cassatt

Your heart calmed and mine beat anew.

My child, my child, hello. It’s so good to meet you.