A Mother's Wail

Formed Words From A Scattered Mind

Wailing is a loud, high-pitched cry that expresses intense sorrow, pain, or grief.  It is a vocal manifestation of intense anguish that can be seen as an outward expression of profound emotional distress or grief.

Hello to all who are out there,

I have written three different essays to share for this week, and the truth is, nothing feels right because nothing is right.  My heart has been breaking with enormous splinters of helplessness and outrage.  Finding anywhere to soothe or find breath has been becoming harder to locate.  My sleep has been mostly non-existent and filled with nightmares, often causing me to wake in paralyzing terror.  A terror shared by my ancestors and by the lineages that came before who witnessed and fought to survive unbelievable circumstances and the right to live.  Circumstances that, when I attempt to put my pen to, all that comes out is a swell of stuck emotion in my throat; no words — because I truly don’t think there are any. 

In the midst, I am trying my hardest to show up for my clients in a very human way.  I am also trying to show up for family and my son, prepare for Halloween, remember to eat, all while feeling fractured and pulled apart. I am distracted (for good reason).  My mind and body seem to be going through rhythms of deep sorrow, highlighted panic, rooted anger and fight, and gapping pains of grief.  There is a desire to scream from the rooftops, yet somehow, in those moments, my body can’t seem to move. 

I remind myself to take breaks and that tending to my nervous system is also important.  I have been texting back and forth with a dear friend who has referred to these breaks as “finding pockets of care, safety, rest, love, and tenderness.” I like that idea and have been allowing for that to be okay as I continue to search for the pockets.  Yet, I just can’t pull myself away — nor will I entirely.  I am trying my hardest to balance it all and to know that I also feel pulled to try and make sense out of the senselessness.  My trying manifests in a wish to do anything that gets this feeling out of my body.  This well of grief, this well of rage, this well of trauma.  Every morning, I grab my phone, wishing that a miracle had taken place during the night. Yet, it just appears to get worse. All of these complex experiences rush in as I find myself making a peanut butter sandwich, searching through our winter clothes to try and locate my son’s missing glove while planning for an upcoming trip.

I am realizing at this moment that holding the complexities of life feels a lot like losing your mind. While at the same time knowing that thousands of people are losing so much more.  

I am showing up here right now because I really don’t know where else to go, and I also know that I am not alone. 

My four-year-old son came home on Thursday with a swollen black eye.  Although he was in some pain, I could tell that he didn’t know how to orient to it.  He was uncomfortable and scared of the discoloring, the reds, purples, and yellows that make up a bruise.  The skin below began to swell, making it hard to see clearly.  He didn’t speak of his uncomfortableness or distress, even though I told him many times that he could and that all emotions are welcomed.   He remained silent as his face made a furrowed brow, as his little body ran back and forth, checking himself in the mirror. 

When I first arrived at his school and saw his eye, my body immediately panicked.  What happened? Was it deliberate? Was it a result of violence?  Play? Or was it a pure accident?  During that one moment before talking to his teacher, my mind went everywhere as I noticed the protective mama wanting to come out and demand justice.  

To be fair to myself, I know that my initial internal response was a bit out of portion.  Which I know happens, especially in the heightened state I have been in.  Of course, the injury was an accident.  A collision with a dear friend; the result  — an accidental bump that will heal. 

When my son walked up to me, he noticed my initial response, my face, I imagine, was drenched in shock.   Wide-eyed and wincing.  A face that, yes, was looking at her child with a black eye, but a face of a mother.  A mother whose heart and body literally breaks when they witness their children in any kind of pain. 

After getting him tucked into the car, we drove to the natural food store two minutes away from his school so that I could purchase Arnica and a cookie that I hoped would make it all better.  It didn’t. He was in pain and a bit distraught.  We sat close the rest of the night, for every time I would leave the room, he beckoned me back, not wanting to be alone. 

He asked a lot of questions.  Why is his eye turning purple?  What is the red stuff?  In a split moment, I wanted to make up something to ease him, provide some words of magic or reassurance.  But instead, I told him the truth, it was called a bruise, and it had to do with the blood underneath his skin.  When I said the word blood, I saw his eyes dart.  I, of course, told him it was normal, that it was a way to help his body heal.  

After I snuggled him into bed.  I began to wail.  My head bowed into my palms as I wept, making sounds that I rarely hear come from inside my body.   My mind raced to all of the mothers witnessing such horror, to all of the children in pain who don’t have to ask what blood is, whose mothers couldn’t hide the truth about what was happening even if they wanted to. 

I have never felt so close to wishing for a miracle, a word that honestly doesn’t usually come out of my mouth.   

As I continued to apply Arnica three times a day to my son’s bruised and swollen eye, I also took a breath to pray (the kind of prayer that I know). As I did, I imagined myself applying a balm of healing love to all of the children and mothers living through realities that are worse than a nightmare. 

As mothers, we are being called to grow far beyond ourselves in these moments. We are, I believe, a collective mother. I keep myself awake to what’s happening with the deepest wish for safety and freedom.  I will not turn to apathy, which means  — I will feel a lot. Which also means  — I need to take tender care of myself.  

I picked up Viktor E. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning.  A book that he wrote after being liberated from a concentration camp. I stumbled upon a passage that felt just like what I needed, “Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.” As I read this, I have to keep repeating to myself: people are not governments, people are not governments, people are not governments.

We must remember love. 

We must remember hope.

We must call for a ceasefire.

We must call for the hostages to be returned. 

We must fight for the safety of those who deserve it.

As a Jewish woman and a mother, I say not in my name, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that my ancestors would call for the same. 

Keep sending your love, your light, and your healing warmth to all who are hurting and who don’t have a voice but have a heart, a body, a spirit, and maybe even a child.