It wasn’t lost on me that I read Kate Hopper’s lovely memoir, Ready for Air, earlier this month, while in the air myself.
Beside me, squeezed into the too-small middle seat, my 6’1″ son Jack was reading his own book. I kept glancing over at him, aware that this was the last trip the two of us would take together for quite a while. Aware, too, that I was already preparing myself for the moment when I would bid him goodbye in Atlanta, leave him to his new life as a student there, and fly home without him.
Kate’s subtitle is “A Journey through Premature Motherhood.” It sounds specific, and it is. This is a story about a baby girl born too soon, about a young woman’s struggle to be strong and brave in the face of one terrifying complication after another, of a marriage that is tested and ultimately strengthened by adversity, of a baby whose struggle to survive offers both a compelling read and something better: a reminder that, in the largest sense, our human stories are all variations on a theme. For isn’t the real journey — through motherhood, through every relationship we ever have, through life itself — really about learning to work with things as they are rather than as we wish they could be?
It’s ridiculous how careful I was during my pregnancy,” Kate writes. “I didn’t use synthetic cleaners; I drank only filtered water; I ate pounds of broccoli and cheese and yogurt—calcium in any form; I bought only organic fruit; I avoided fish because of the mercury. But it didn’t matter. None of it could make her stay inside me and keep growing until she was full term. I followed the rules, I did what I was told, and it didn’t matter.”
Coming upon these words at an altitude of 10,000 feet, I suddenly realized why it was entirely appropriate for me to be reading a harrowing birth story at the very moment that my own “baby” was leaving the nest. There, buckled into my window seat and twenty-one years out from my own blissfully uneventful final month of pregnancy, I found myself absorbed by Kate’s intimate, profoundly personal account of her daughter’s rocky arrival on this earth.
It wasn’t just the narrative that engaged me, although Kate writes vividly of the unfolding drama in which she suddenly finds herself: the severe preeclampsia and skyrocketing blood pressure that leads to an emergency C-section, her two-pound baby’s fight to survive, oxygen tents and tube feedings and breast-pump miseries, a raging, life-threatening sepsis infection just when things are looking up, and Stella’s long, slow pilgrimage from her tiny isolette in the NICU to her own bed in her own home.
What struck me even more, and made me grateful for this raw, uncensored account of a birth story gone awry, was its powerful reminder that motherhood – and indeed, life itself — at any age and at any stage is about surrender and acceptance, and that love and loss are always inextricably intertwined.
“We raise our children to let them go,” the old grandmothers remind us. But of course the letting go isn’t just about children growing up and leaving home; it begins at once and it continues for as long as we are parents.
Day by day, from the moment our babies are delivered out of our bodies and into our arms, we are reminded that we aren’t in control. We can mourn for what we wanted and didn’t have, or we can begin to trust in the rightness of the challenges we’re handed and in our own ability to weather the unknown.
“Live the questions now,” a wise friend suggests, quoting Rilke in a note to Kate after she leaves the hospital without her newborn. “And perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into the answers.”
This, I think, is what Ready for Air is really about and why, in an odd way, it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. For me, the raising part was relatively easy. I’ve loved being a mom, loved having my two sons at the very center of my life for so many years. It’s the letting go part that’s always been hard.
And now, as my second son makes his way in the world as an adult far from home, I find myself living the questions all over again. There are no assurances for his future, any more than there are for mine or yours. I want to know that he’ll be fine, that he’s made the right choice, that all will be well. I can’t know any of that, of course. Instead, I try for patience. I attempt to abide quietly with the unknowns. I promise myself to live the questions, just as both my sons are doing.
Ready for Air drew me in deep and delivered the message I seem to need to hear again and again: our children’s destinies are not ours to decide, their lives not ours to live or shape. We may put everything we have into the work of being a mother or a father. We may love our children with all our hearts. But we don’t get to call the shots. We can’t choose their paths for them. And we don’t get to decide how the story unfolds.
For Kate and her husband, the work of letting go begins with a pregnancy that goes overnight from difficult to high-risk, with a two-pound infant fighting for her life in the netherworld of a neonatal intensive care unit, and with a string of unforeseen challenges and setbacks.
It begins in fear and in protest: This isn’t fair. This isn’t what we signed up for. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.
And then, slowly, This isn’t fair is transformed into This is how it is. Fear melts away, giving rise to acceptance. Faith is tested and redefined. Letting go becomes an act of surrender, of love, of trusting in the bigger picture and the greater forces at work in the universe. And in the softening, there is a realization: Here we are. And we aren’t alone.
There was a moment near the end of our flight when Jack looked over my shoulder. He couldn’t believe I’d read almost an entire book, barely looking up once. He was surprised to see I’d been reading about a baby, of all things. I flipped open my calendar (the leatherbound notebook I still use for everything, a handwritten extension of me). I showed him the photo I keep inside the front flap, of the two of us when he was about six months old. He is a wispy-haired, pudgy armful, snuggled up close under my chin, burrowing in and looking out at the world from the protection of my embrace. I am younger than seems possible, my skin still fair and smooth, my eyes wide with mother-wonder.
A lifetime ago. Just yesterday. Both. A different story entirely from the one I was in the midst of reading. And yet, in the way that matters most, perhaps not so different at all. For the lesson we are all here to learn is essentially the same. We arrive on the shores of adulthood with a white-knuckle grip on our own carefully honed vision of the way we think things ought to be. And then life has its way with us.
Growing up, it turns out, isn’t about realizing the vision after all. It’s about surrendering to the truth of what is. Is there a mother, anywhere, who hasn’t been shaken by loss or by some unforeseen reality that defies the best-laid plan? Who hasn’t found herself traveling in foreign territory, stumbling down a road that wasn’t on the map, with only love and instinct to guide her way? It may be, as it was for Kate, a hushed room in the NICU with a two-pound preemie. Or, it may be years later — a phone call from a stranded teenager in the middle of the night, the threshold of a rehab center, a plane ticket to join the Peace Corps, a choice that rocks a family to its core, a diagnosis that changes everything. We raise our children. We let them go.
And along the way, we share our stories with one another. Stories of our children growing, falling, learning, living, and sometimes even dying. And our own stories of growing right along with them, of loving and stumbling. Of reaching out for help, of holding on and letting go. And of finding our way, step by step, in the dark.
A teacher now, and the mother of two healthy daughters, Kate helps other women write the stories they need to tell. “Your stories matter,” she tells her students. “Putting them down on paper and crafting them matters.” This brave, beautiful book is a testament to that truth.
I have a giveaway copy of Ready for Air to share with a lucky reader. Just leave a comment below, and I will choose one winner at random on Saturday, Oct. 26. You can answer the question: When, in your own life did you find yourself lost, without a map, and thinking, “It wasn’t supposed to be this way!”? Or, if you’re feeling shy, just let me know you’d love to read this book!
University of Minnesota Press is going to donate 15 copies of Ready for Air to neonatal intensive care units in the US and Canada. Kate would welcome suggestions of hospitals that you wish to be considered. Put the details in the comments, including an address and to whom the book should be sent. In early November, she will draw 15 hospitals and send each a signed copy of her book. You can read more about this giveaway here.
A welcome, and a thank you
To all of you reading here for the very first (or second) time, welcome! I’m thrilled and grateful that my post last week about turning 55 inspired you to find your way to this website, my online “home.” I would love to hear from you.
It would be an understatement to say I was thrilled and moved by the response to “This is 55.” Watching my reflections go viral, seeing them shared thousands of times on Facebook, hearing from women from ages 30 to 80, and reading all the thoughtful comments here and elsewhere, just confirmed for me something I already suspected: we are all hungry for an intelligent, honest conversation about how things really are and how we really feel as we grow and change. My thoughts got the conversation started. The best thing was that you all continued it. I loved reading your responses and wish I could have answered every single one – although, as my husband pointed out, I would be 56 by the time I finished.
Fortunately, you responded to one another, you shared your own stories, you offered words of encouragement, and the ripples have continued to move outward from here – on Facebook, on Maria Shriver’s Architects of Change website, and even on Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls page. Exciting! And thought-provoking.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing. I’m glad you’re here!
I yearn for the days when my kids were babies. Those were the happiest years of my life.
This sounds like a great book! You never know how something is going to turn out…Life is beautiful!
I would love to read this book, Ready for Air. Thank you
I am the mother of twin girls now 30. They were born early and both very tiny. They are healthy & happy. They both chose to enter the medical field ( I had lymphoma ) 10 years ago and they saw what I went thru. The book sounds wonderful.
Oh Arlene, I’m so happy to hear about your 30-year-old ex-preemies!
My world turned upside down when my first born daughter died, as you know, of a heart defect at 24 days old. I, too, had to go from “this isn’t fair” to “this is how it is.” I really did have to trust in the bigger picture and believe that there is a bigger plan here that I can only hope to partially understand. Kate’s words and yours, resonate deeply with me, as always:)
Oh Erin, I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’d love to read this book! I’m the mom of a 1 lb 10 oz preemie who is now nearly 16. I dread the day he goes off to college, yet I know this is how life is supposed to happen.
Angela, I’m so happy to hear that your 1 lb 10 oz baby is now 16! Though I understand your dread at his leaving. My Stella is only ten, and I’m already dreading it!
I am totally dealing with this right now. My oldest son was found dead two days ago. I wanted to slap him and tell him he couldn’t do that, but there is something so final about death. The person is gone.
I never thought I would be dealing with the loss of one of my kids, NEVER.
It is very hard. It is not real to me in some ways still. I started a memorial page for him on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/JoyforJacob It will help me cope with his loss as I like to write out my feelings and that is cathartic for me. Your book sounds really interesting. If i don’t win, let me know where it can be purchased, after we finish getting a funeral paid for. hugs, Terry
I am so sorry for your loss.
Oh Terry, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ll be thinking of you and your whole family.
I remember reassuring myself with the thought that birth is something that happens naturally, everywhere. Then I was told my 3 month old was not going to live: diagnosis, kidney failure. My mother instincts kicked in and I simply told the specialist he was wrong. That didn’t win me any friends; however, my instincts were correct. NOW I know that his “failure to thrive” was the result of the morphine he received through my breast milk, at 6 days old. I was diagnosed with puerperal fever aka “childbed fever” and they were desperate to keep me alive. I remember worrying, through the haze of pain, about my newborn and how the morphine would effect him. I was told there would be no effect. Oh how wrong they were. At any rate, he is now a 6’3″ hockey playing, musician/teacher and has 3 wonderful children of his own. Thank God I was right. I would love to read this book and I enjoy your sensitive musings about motherhood.
Linda, fortunately I didn’t give up on my son either. When he was born they told me to start planning his funeral because he “wasn’t going to make it.” He had a severe brain bleed, due to delivery, and his body was struggling to overcome the pooling of blood in his little head. I refused to give up! I refused to stop believing in him. We overcame that struggle and then found out I was poisoning him with excess iron due to the iron supplements they were giving me, for the loss of blood during delivery, and the iron-supplemented formula they had him on. Once I finally figured out why my baby was visably dying in my arms, I took action immediately and got both he and me off the iron-supplements. Almost overnight he became a reactive, normal, happily-screaming, pink baby. It may be “what it is” in the moment, but we don’t have to stick to that….there’s always “what COULD BE” just waiting around the bend. My son is now 14 and THRIVING! I totally believe, Mothers Know BEST!
Oh Linda and Chareen, I’m so glad you both refused to believe the diagnoses you were given. It’s so heartening to hear your sons have thrived!
My world turned upside down at the birth of my second son. Nine months to the day..I delivered a still born son. This wasn’t the way it was suppose to be…this is not fair. My life stood still. When he came down into the birth canel, a knot in the cord shut off his life! That close to being my healthy son. How …why. I will never know, I survived, but have a big hole in my heart. Peace to all.
Dear Karen, I’m so incredibly sorry for your loss.
Still waiting for acceptance….. This message resonates with me. Life, and motherhood have not been the way I planned them. Still I wouldn’t trade a moment. I would love to read this book.
My own daughter was a 3 lb preemie who will be going to her junior year Homecoming Dance tomorrow night. A very difficult pregnancy led doctors to prepare me for her inevitable death in utero or soon after. She is sunshine in our lives!
Kathy, I loved reading these words!
We are coming up on the 4th anniversary of the worst day of my life. My the 12-year-old son had been ill. He had a virus that he got around Halloween 2009. Nothing spectacular, just a low grade fever, headache, and a little achy. Two days into the illness, I called the doctor to get an appointment and he told me not to bring Zack in because it would pass and he didn’t want him around the people in the waiting room that had H1N1, which was rampant that year. Two days later, on November 5, 2009, he seemed better and I was planning to send him to school. We took a nap together (thank God!) and I was awakened by him having a grand mal seizure next to me. The lower portion of his face was blue, he was foaming at the mouth and all you could see of his beautiful blue eyes were the whites as his eyes rolled back in his head. I paged my husband in his home office, called 911, hopped in the ambulance and spent the next month in the hospital next to Zack’s bed as he struggled for his life. The virus had breached the barrier to his brain and wreaked havoc! Zack now has drug resistant epilepsy and has had 2 brain surgeries to remove damaged tissue from his brain. He takes 5 different seizure meds 5 times a day and perseveres! He is a trooper. There is no book that prepares you for this! You just take it one day at a time. I will tell you that I never felt alone in the hospital room and, even though I didn’t have a map, I had a guide that was with me (and with Zack) throughout this ordeal. Last year, I was diagnosed with a benign operable brain tumor the size of a large lemon. I had to tell my family that I needed brain surgery. I was most worried about Zack’s reaction but, as always, he handled it with grace and said, “Mom, it’s just brain surgery. I’ve had two and I’m alright.” There have been times through this that I have been scared beyond belief but I never cried because I had faith that everything would be okay. Zack is now in school full-time for the first time in 4 years and my surgery returned my eyesight in my left eye, my sense of smell and taste, and made me a bit less crazy! I have thought, especially for Zack, that it wasn’t supposed to be this way! I have thought that it wasn’t fair that this happened to my brilliant boy! But, there are things that I’ve learned along the way and extremely spiritual experiences that I have had that would have come to me no other way. I think Zack would say the same thing. There are days that I wish our lives were back to normal but I realize that we just need to re-define what normal is.
Oh Mary Ann, I’m so sorry this happened. But I’m struck by Zack’s grace and optimism. What a gift!
The book sounds wonderful. I would love to read it.
Over the past year I’ve been dealing with a condition called pyoderma gangrenosum which has been frightening and very painful, and I wondered why me. I am happy to say I’m on the road to recovery and the lessons learned this past year have been so important that maybe I could not have learned them any other way. I’m coming out of the tunnel and life is really, really good.
Dear Mary Ann, I’m so happy to hear that you’re coming out of that tunnel!
I’m feeling that way right now. My only child is almost 15, and even though I know he’ll be gone before long, I’m absorbed in my work life and feeling guilty that I’m not being a good mom. I need that map to keep me focused on family so I don’t regret these days when I look back on them.
I absolutely love your blog. You always seem to reach the core of what so many of us are thinking and feeling. Thanks!
I would love to read this book and then pass it on to my two daughters who both became mothers themselves (and made me a grandmother!) in the past year.
My children are 3 and 6. Thank you for your reflections. They bring me back to what really matters while remembering to enjoy these days as tiring as they may be!
LOVED, LOVED “This is 55” post!!! Fantastic!
Would love to read this book and then pass it on to local NICU
Most of my “this isn’t fair” moments relate to my relationship with my own mother and the discrepancy between an ideal and reality. Mental illness is easy to put in a box of logic but much more difficult to pin down in the emotional arena.
I would love to read Kate’s book. I nominate the NICU at the University if Arizona’s Medical Center.
Oh Micha, I know what you mean about mental illness. It’s such a tricky disease to navigate.
Can you post the address and contact info for the U of A NICU here: http://motherhoodandwords.com/2013/10/nicu-giveaway/
The challenge of “being here now” turns out not to be a challenge, but a welcoming invitation!
In the midst of mothering 3 kids I dedinitely feel at times that I’ve lost my way 🙂 but then I read books like yours, and find my way back to what is important to me.
Your posts are wonderful and I love reading them and of course, I can relate. I too have stories of my own as any mother of four sons would have. Now, just slightly older than you, I keep on loving and am learning to let go. How fun and rewarding it’s been to watch them transition into their adult frames and minds. Do I worry? Do frightening thoughts still bring tears to my eyes? Do I know how lucky I am to still have them in my life? I can’t thank you enough for putting your thoughts on paper so eloquently. I look forward to reading more of your posts and this book. Tremendous thanks for putting your thoughts on paper.
My world was rocked when my daughter called to tell me her husband of 6 months was abusive. Her life was in danger. She was living 26 hours away. Never in a million years did I see this coming!
Oh Cris, that must have been terrifying. I hope she is now safe.
Would love to win this book. My 18 year old daughter was born at 32 weeks, 3 pounds 4 ounces due to pre-eclampsia. Her strength and determination to thrive from those early days of medical uncertainty have shaped her into the highly driven and involved college freshman that she is today. Again, would love to win this book.
Oh Kathy, almost exactly the same gestation and weight! So happy to hear your daughter is doing so well!
I would love to read this book “Ready for Air”. Our this isn’t fair moment happened when our oldest was bullied in school. As the parents, we made the decision to move the family to a different town. Obviously, not the easiest thing to do when the kids were entering their junior, freshman, and 7th grade. It was a rocky road, but looking back now, as our oldest prepares to graduate this year, we are so happy we made that decision. Fresh starts aren’t always a possible option, but in our case, we seized the opportunity and rolled with whatever came our way.
Cheryl, I’m so glad you were able to move your family and keep your kids safe!
When my oldest daughter (now 23 years old) was embarking on her exciting senior year of high school, we discovered she was suffering from an eating disorder and other self-destructive behaviors. We were devastated and wondered what had happened to our beautiful, smart, outgoing first born – all unbeknownst to us. Doctor after doctor told us we had no recourse but to admit her to Weill-Cornell for treatment. Discovering her sufferings and then bringing her to that place was one of the most painful experiences of my life…nothing prepared us for this….nor the looks on the faces of our other two daughters (then ages 11 and 14) when we told them what was happening. Many years of treatment and therapy later, she continues to struggle with issues, and the visible scars on her body remind me daily of how lost she must have been and why weren’t we (her parents) more keen to her struggles? I question myself almost everyday and wonder how could we have made things better for her.
Oh Grace, my heart goes out to you. That must have been devastating. But gratefully you took action and helped her get where she is today, even if she is still struggling.
I just added this to my amazon wish list yesterday! Even though my children were born healthy, I was totally unprepared for motherhood, and the first few years were a real challenge. I’m currently reading Use Your Words, and I’m eager to read this one.
Thank you for reading, Sarah!
I would love to read this book. Thank you!
Almost fifteen years ago our daughter, age 7, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. My husband and I went on automatic pilot as we navigated through doctor’s appointments, MRIs, surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Our world immediately changed. I remember sitting in the back seat of the van with our daughter as my husband drove us home after a long day in the infusion room. As we arrived in our hometown and drove up Broad Street, there were people walking around, coming out of the Wilbur Chocolate Factory, the Teddy Bear Emporium, families coming out of the park, pushing strollers, smiling and laughing. At that moment I felt completely left behind.
Last week Katelyn celebrated her 22nd birthday. Her life is full of challenges. She suffered brain damage from the harsh radiation treatment which saved her life. Radiation therapy also damaged her pituitary and thyroid glands so she will take injections and medication for the rest of her life. She wears hearing aids in both ears due to a harsh chemo drug. She has inhalers to use for obstructive airway disease which is from a radiation burn/scarring in her airway. Many days I feel “ it wasn’t supposed to be this way”, “this isn’t what we signed up for,” and “this isn’t how it was supposed to happen.” But “this is how it is.” Amen. Thank you for your words.
Today she is an artist. She would correct me and say she is a cartoonist. It has been difficult for her to get a job (she works as a sub in her old middle school cafeteria). For years Katelyn has made personalized cards for friends and families for special occasions. This has blossomed into a small business, Kards by Kay. And thank God for that.
Thank god for these kids who survive childhood cancer and the havoc that it wreaks! Good for them! Good for their precious parents! I remember being 23 and taking my 14 month old very sick child onto a cancer ward in 1972….I didn’t even know children got cancer. I so knew it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I remember people remarking that they didn’t know how we could do what we did. I also remember thinking “do I have an option here?” It is what it is. I know what you went through. I remember the children with brain cancer that didn’t make it through. Safe journey my friend.
Oh Susan, I can absolutely see you arriving in your bustling hometown and feeling completely left out. I’m checking out Katelyn’s cards right now!
Oh, Katrina. I loved Kate’s book and your review helps me understand in a new way some of why it spoke to me so powerfully. Yes. Thank you.
Katrina, l love reading your posts. I look forward to each one. I relate to everything you write. As a mom of a 27 and 29 year old, I long for those “ordinary days” again and treasure each minute I still get to spend with them. Thank you.
When my girls became teenagers every piece of advice i’d been given went out the window—it just didn’t fit. I had to map my own journey for sure!
I need a map right now!
Live the questions now – love that, and it is so right! I didn’t expect to have three miscarriages before finally becoming a mother. You get through it all somehow bacause you must. We have four healthy children, and you are right, the letting go is so difficult.
I love your post and the journey that you have been on with your daughter! I am so glad that she found something that she enjoys that uses her talents. I know my son will have a similar problem with employment because of epilepsy so it is good to see that someone like your daughter persevered and conquered that issue. I googled her card company. She is very talented. After I post this, I am going to order my Christmas cards from her. Give her a big “You go, girl!” from Texas!
Though I do cultivate other interests, trying to keep a sense of myself, my children are the center of my world. With them, I have experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. The unexpected birth experience or child being hurt is certainly the lowest of the lows. :). I want to be the perfect mother, I want to keep them safe and with me always…. I know I do not have that control and letting go where my children are concerned, is and will be, the hardest. I just pray they are happy, safe and surrounded by love always.
I don’t have any kids of my own but the statement about learning to deal with life as it is rather than as we wish it could be stuck a cord deeply within me. Never were words so true for all of us.
I’m lost without a map right now. It isn’t supposed to be like this. How many damned times does this have to be true in one life time? The article just made me feel weepy with it’s love and loss and realities that I’d just rather not have so much of. My oldest son, just turned 44, had cancer when he was 14 months old. That wasn’t supposed to be the way a young mother should have to learn the lessons of things just aren’t how we think they should be. So, this precious son of mine grows up to be a fine young man in the prime of his life now with a lovely family and two young sons of his own. He is very ill now and it looks like it may be related to the radiation treatments he had to have as a baby to save his life. If he does indeed have this serious and rare blood disorder it will be the fight of his life once again without a clear possibility that this time he will make it through. My husband died suddenly. He was 63. My daughter just lost her baby that was conceived through IVF along with emergency surgery when it was found another embryo had implanted itself inside a tube which then ruptured and my daughter was bleeding internally. She’s already making plans to try the IVF once again…that’s how badly she wants to experience a pregnancy. My youngest son has mental illness and his life is so marginalized by that. Wonderful dogs have died. So damned much loss. Tell me….how many bad things have to happen to one kind, loving, generous of spirit family??? Please someone tell me.
Oh Linda, I’m so sorry for your many losses, and I’ll be thinking of you and your son and his family as they navigate cancer yet again.
Oh, I can relate on so many levels, but I cannot seem to express it. It makes me too darn sad. I would love to read this book. Lynn
I definitely understand the struggle to let go, so I’m sure this book will speak to me. I’m re-reading my old Judith Viorst books as we speak, hoping she can guide me through My first-born’s adolescence. It’s hard work!
“Growing up, it turns out, isn’t about realizing the vision after all. It’s about surrendering to the truth of what is. Is there a mother, anywhere, who hasn’t been shaken by loss or by some unforeseen reality that defies the best-laid plan? Who hasn’t found herself traveling in foreign territory, stumbling down a road that wasn’t on the map, with only love and instinct to guide her way?”
This captured what I frequently feel raising two teenagers — one just entering this stage and one about to enter adulthood and all that it holds. I was intrigued by your connection with this book and the parallels to motherhood at any stage and I’m looking forward to reading it. Your insight and writing is spot on!
I would love to read this book.
I am struggling with accepting the new me after 16 years with Parkinson’s; this year I have started loosing 4 to 6 hours a day to off time. It is hard. My life “wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
Oh Ellen, I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling now. I can only imagine what that feels like, but I’ll be thinking of you.
Katrina…
As you know, I collect writing. Things I’ve read that resonate, which I can look back on when needed. This morning, I added your beautifully articulated words from this post:
“For the lesson we are all here to learn is essentially the same. We arrive on the shores of adulthood with a white-knuckle grip on our own carefully honed vision of the way we think things ought to be. And then life has its way with us.”
Indeed, life does have its way with all of us.
I’ve come to believe that during those times I need to ask; what exactly am I suppose to learn from this? How am I meant to grow? The universe is always at work… trying to get us to evolve.
Thank you for bringing to light this beautiful memoir.
And thank you also, for your reflective last post; “This is 55”
I would recommend it to all women, regardless of their age.
Onward & Upward~
Stephanie
Hi Katrina
Thanks, once again for the inspiration and shared feelings. I loved your This is 55 post too! The hardest stories for me to read are always about lost children or fears about losing one’s child. But as I journey through my own grief over my lost child I have come to realize how many share these experiences in so many different ways. Thanks for courageously sharing your stories and for telling me about Kate’s story. I look forward to reading it.
Beth
I won’t answer the question but tell about an older mother losing a daughter. The mother was in her eighties, the daughter about 65 when she passed from this earth.
Once we’ve had a child we are always mother. I remember this mother whaling at her daughters funeral, that she shouldn’t have gone. “It should have been me,” she cried over and over again. “She was not ready, It should have been me.”
Today, I dropped my son off at church for a retreat. They would attend mass first then break into groups for the next 5 hours, learning, playing, discussing, being spiritual. I debated about attending. I tried to find out what he’d like me to do. I walked him in, but that was it. I stopped and let him go. He didn’t know who would be there, or if he would know anyone, but mostly he would. He had to trust in that. He didn’t look back. I still thought, should I be a part of his day and share this? Then I shook my head, no, and went home. It was a touching moment to let him be independent. Meet new people on his own. Particpate on his own. I will look forward to when he comes home and hopefully shares his adventures with me. So, those ‘letting go’ moments sneak up on you. Thanks for sharing the book. I’ll look forward to reading it, whether I win or not. I’ve added it to my “to read” list. Have a wonderful day!
This does sound like a lovely book. I found myself in a similar state when We had our first child, and three days after his birth, he went into the NICU for three harrowing weeks. I also find myself in a similar state to you Katrina, as my ‘sweet first born’ is now almost 20 years old!
The continuing amazing and oh so awesome journey of motherhood!
Thank you always, for sharing your beautiful light.
“This isn’t fair. This isn’t what we signed up for. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.” As I begin to let go of two young men that I adopted 18 and 21 years ago, after 2 miscarriages and 2 ectopic pregnancies. I sometimes wonder the same. All of that followed by divorce and one of the boys going to wilderness and TBS. “And then, slowly, This isn’t fair is transformed into This is how it is. Fear melts away, giving rise to acceptance. Faith is tested and redefined. Letting go becomes an act of surrender, of love, of trusting in the bigger picture and the greater forces at work in the universe. And in the softening, there is a realization: Here we are. And we aren’t alone.” Your words capture really how it is. I am grateful that after the struggles I have come to this conclusion as well. This is all meant to be part of our journey.
Wow, I am so humbled by some of the responses.
I often feel this way–‘this is not how it should be’ and also feel so frustrated that I can’t always just feel so at peace with my son’s autism. But like many have said, it is what it is.
I have been trying to write about my experience with the birth of my daughter Julia for many years. I am blown away by the description of Ready for Air by Kate Hopper and can’t wait to read it. My daughter Julia was born with brain birth defects. Seizures, feeding tubes, physical therapy, medications, and grieving the life I thought I would have with my first child, became a part of my daily life. Julia lived for 7 years. She would have turned 20 last month. Now I must run out and buy Kate Hopper’s book, Use Your Words…. I am inspired to finally write Julia’s story.
Dear Gloria, I’m so sorry for your loss. I do hope you’ll write Julia’s story and your story of being her mother. Send it out into the world!
My world came crashing a day after my son was born. He was diagnosed with erb’s palsy. The change in the mood at the hospital, from joy, happiness and elation to disappointment, pain and sadness, all in a span of 24 hours just didn’t sit right with me. Why me? What is erb’s palsy? Is Vivek ever going to be ok? So many questions yet no answers. That day will go down as the worse day of my life. Seventeen year later, despite his disability Vivek is a fine, young man who will soon be moving to college and starting his life as an adult. Me, I still worry though…my journey as a mother will never end.
Oh Shalini, I’m so sorry for the pain of that day, but I’m heartened to hear that Vivek is a fine young man!
The desperate, shaken feeling of ‘wasn’t supposed to be this way’ was underlying throughout my daughter’s first year of life. I struggled for so many months before realizing that my belief that becoming a mother meant relinquishing my claim on happiness was not normal or true. Addressing my post-partum depression eventually allowed me to feel the radical joy I expected to pervade when she was born. Our days are still fraught with frustration and lost patience, but there is connection and laughter and delight mixed in.
Sounds like a book I would like to read. Having my child just leave to start college, I too am likely to be found reading mama memoirs (The Gift of an Ordinary Day was the book of today) . So, this recommended book – perfect.
This sounds wonderful! I would be honored to have a copy.
“When, in your own life did you find yourself lost, without a map, and thinking, “It wasn’t supposed to be this way!”?
When my middle daughter was born 31 years ago and at 9 months of age she was diagnosed with a rare neurological anomoly. I went into a tailspin of grief stuck in the dark feelings of bitterness, anger and the ‘why me, why her’ question. The everyday dream of a normal, healthy baby was shattered. “Now what” set in. Luckily I found a fabulous therapist who specilaized in working with parents of children with disabilities. Slowly, through my years’ work with him, the unanswerable question of ‘Why’ shifted to ‘How’ and ‘What’. The clouds of grief started moving and short rays of sunlight started filtering through. My goal in raising her started taking shape: to help her be as independent and functional as possible and to foster a positive self-esteem, to feel good about herself as she is. Today I can honestly say, those goals have been, and continues to be met. I take tremendous pride and joy in who she is a person; one who strives to grow and is a happy individual who loves life and exudes that to all who cross her path.
I would love a copy of this book. Im a mom of 3 boys and my third was a 32 weeker who is now a persistent bubbly 2 year old! We praise God for him and for the moment in our life where we were forced to lean on God more than ever before. Thanks for sharing and praise God for all those sweet premies
Thank you so much for sharing this book. I have been through much of the same thing and am always amazed at how many of us out there suffer through pregnancy. I thought I was the only one at the time! I have since written down my story to preserve and share in the hope that one day it will inspire others out there.
http://oneadaygratitude.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-story-end-part-6-candida-and-beyond.html
sounds like a book for my book club to read. I always like the books that you recommend so that is enough for me. If I win it, great. otherwise I will get my library to order a copy so I can borrow it.
Three years ago after struggling with a teen that was in trouble and his sister following closely behind him. We decided for my husband to take and new job and get both kids out of their situation – moving them with us of course. It took 18 months to sell the house and by that time, our oldest was 6 weeks from graduating high school and his sister was finishing out her junior year. We lived in a hotel for 6 weeks and hoped against all odds that our soon to graduate son would move with us to South Carolina, some 800 miles away from his trouble. It turns out, he decided to stay in Wisconsin, at 18 that was his choice, and later we learned that the courts would require him to stay there for 12 months while on probation for some of his teen antics. We moved our daughter with us to SC before knowing our son would be required by law to remain in Wisconsin. After a wonderful year with our daughter during her senior year – she decided to go to Wisconsin to college. Our son remains in Wisconsin also – now with a long time girlfriend and their new baby. Our first grandchild, who has stolen our hearts. I read your book, Gift of an Ordinary Day , and it resonated with my soul. You see this isn’t the way my life was supposed to be. I was supposed to have a house where my children grew up, they were supposed to stay in the city around us, we were supposed to have regular family dinners where our married children and grandchildren surrounded us and all was supposed to be wonderful. Well, here’s what I’ve learned, everyone’s journey is different, and I can’t plan or control the journey of others no matter how much I want. I somehow have to learn to be happy in the situation I’m in and somehow have to enjoy my journey and enjoy it as our life unfolds. I’m continuely conflicted – my life seems to be tetering on a fence always, do we stay here, move there, or be still and wait and try not to plan. My life seems on hold, I’m afraid to make a step in any direction so I am stagnated. I look forward to reading “Magical Journey” and hopefully will be reading “Ready for Air”. Maybe I should write a book or two about my life’s journeys. We’ll see. Can’t wait to see what you do next.
I”ve been told and I think it’s very wise that no action IS an action. Sometimes the one that is the most called for. When the time is right you will be able to make a decision about how to move on. I remember when moving thru grief from the loss of husband that it takes the time it takes and you just can’t rush some life stuff. No need for you to stagnate! Make your life full where you are now and when the time comes to move on you’ll be ready and know it’s right. I so related to your comments about how it was “supposed to be”. That was what I imagined too. My life is SO not what I had imagined. But, it’s still good and rich and full. As an old friend once said to me “life just gets messy doesn’t it?”…..no truer words were ever spoken. Best of luck to you.
Thank you, Ms. Kenison, for continually sharing your words of wisdom and heartfelt introspection for the rest of us that think “we’re the only one.” I so look forward to every posting you make….please keep them coming! And to all the wonderful mothers that so bravely posted your stories ahead of me….thank you for sharing your struggles and your achievements. You are all beautiful and perfect in every way!
This book sounds amazing. My daughters (12 and 8) we’re born with complications and spent the first part of their lives in the NICU. I have always wanted to write our story and can totally understand how it feels to follow the pregnancy rules and not have the outcome you expect. I know that my girls are here to teach me something and I just hope I’m learning. 🙂
I am a student (and fan) of Kate. I have just started her wonderful book and am drawn into the story even though it differ from my own. Yet as you say, maybe we are not so different.
“We arrive on the shores of adulthood with a white-knuckle grip on our own carefully honed vision of the way we think things ought to be. And then life has its way with us.” I love this passage you wrote. Learning to accept what is is such an ongoing process for me. Thank you for your wonderful writing as well.
I would love to read this book
Lost, without a road map was definitely when I found out our little boy’s heart, at 18 weeks in womb, had stopped. It wasn’t suppose to be that way. Now, 3 more miscarriages and 13 years later, I am so grateful for the 2 boys I have and for the 4 lives that were too short. I learned a lot from all of it.
The time like that in my life that comes to mind is when I realized that I was meant to be at home with my kids while they were little. I always assumed I’d be a working mom (as in working outside the home) but after the birth of my first child I was devastated at the thought of leaving her. I went through a bit of an identity crisis, worked for another two years, and then my husband and I were able to do some re-working of the finances to allow me to be at home by the time my second child was born. I’ve been so thankful to have been given this beautiful (albeit challenging at times) gift.
Thank you for your beautiful reflections on what sounds like an exquisite book. I find myself lost right now, deep in the mystery of the unknown, lost and scared, hoping that a path will reveal itself and provide solid ground. Grateful for your reassurance that I am not alone.
I am amazed at the comments. What a wonderful collection of stories. Thank you, Katrina, for another touching subject to help us see and understand our own life in a new way. I would love to read the book Ready for Air. What an incredible journey Kate has taken.
I would love to win this book. My oldest is getting ready to leave for college. She didn’t get the grades she could have and is now limited in her choices and unlikely to get in to the campus of her dreams. My youngest is learning her first painful lessons about boys and lies and hurt. I know that these are not on the magnitude of what others have dealt with, but they still bring me to a place where I am not in control and cannot fix their hurts with a kiss and a bandaid. It is hard to let go.
My son now 8 had a difficult birth. My placenta had torn and he swallowed a great deal of blood. I could not hold him until the next day. He was born c-section and was hooked up to numerous tubes. I stayed awake all night but had a feeling of comfort that he would be alright. The next morning the doctor came to tell me that they were gradually able to remove most of the tubes with the exception for a feeding tube. He stayed in NICU for the 4 days we were in the hospital and was fortunately able to go home with us. He still has a fighting spirit that can be a challenge but I believe it is what kept him alive. Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio would be a great hospital to receive a book. I also teach prenatal and postnatal yoga and will share this book with some of my students. Thank you for this opportunity
Jenn, I’m so glad your son is doing well! Can you leave an address at http://motherhoodandwords.com/2013/10/nicu-giveaway/ so I can make sure the hospital in Columbus gets a copy of the book?
I’d love to read “Ready For Air,” what a journey Kate has had; I have no experiences that even remotely come close. I had a wonderful pregnancy and delivered a beautiful girl who turns nine in February, and I’ll turn 52 later in the year. Being an older mom and having an only child makes me appreciate our “ordinary days” even more. I sometimes border on melancholy thinking about the day she will be off on her own and living her life. I remind myself that that’s not for a long while and get back to the present. But still, these eight years have gone by in the blink of an eye.
It is so hard to remember our children have to build their own paths in life and we sometimes have to let them take that hard road alone.
I was challenged when my daughter, then 18, came out as lesbian. I’d thought of myself as open minded and accepting, voting no on CA Prop 8, etc. but discovered when it came to my own child, all kinds of issues came up for me. Five years later after much soul searching, honest and open communication with my daughter, therapy, tears, support from friends, family, and PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), I am at a much better place. This is just one example of stumbling down a road that wasn’t on the map. That our kids’ lives are their own and it is our job to love them unconditionally.
I would love to read Kate Hopper’s book.
Thank you for considering me in this giveaway. I, too, am 55 and your posts touch my heart!