I know you are...but what am I?

As time passes, and the burden on my heart lightens somewhat, I continue to screw my brow over one conundrum. I know how hard and wonderful it must be to be a mother. I am sure of it. People write about it in blogs, gripe about it over the phone and advertise it on holiday cards. And, I know no one would ever brood over its pleasures and pains to tug at my raw places. These things, I understand. For these parents, it is just a now-elemental part of the their existence. But I do not know what it feels like to hear my child cry out for me, or for my heart to break so beautifully as my daughter reaches out to be held by me, or to sneak up on Bill holding her and looking, sharing a moment with their river eyes. I do not know what it is to wake up at all hours and nourish my sweet girl to quench her sadness, to change diapers, a pungent endeavor but resulting in a clean and healthy baby. I have missed the opportunity to bathe her, teach her, walk her to her first day of kindergarten, or watch her march the stage with her tiny cohorts. I will never have one of those wonderful holiday announcements brandishing Sophie's picture, nor will I be the mother of my bride.

After all the lamentations, however, I know I have loved my daughter as much as any mother. I was born to love her. I have held her for moments too brief, and carried her for nearly countless weeks. I have shared moments with her, even now as she sleeps silently. It is hard to be Sophie's mother. I have to love her and her memory without ever holding her again. I will never see her grow up, but my love for her will grow as would any mother's. So, this brings me to the question. Who am I? I am not a mother. I am a mother. I have no children. I have a daughter. I do not have a family. I have a family, rich in love and memories. There is no answer to this question that is now an intrinsic part of me. Just something to think about.


I am a body of deep royal sadness.
Tangible moving living breathing
The waves roll in
The waves roll out
Like captured salt brine water
In the sea
The wisdom sadness lives forever
Birthing swelling within me
Empty shallows of skin
Sandbars of golden wheat
Peeking from beneath hot bath
Breasts once teeming
Now empty and hanging across an almost boyish chest
Hands once trembling with the need to give
Now depressed and deflated
Holding nothing
Hips, spread and stretched
The skin peeled back - lashed red striations -
I have drowned in feeling myself a mother.