Childless Mothers

Ask her. Ask the childless woman

in your life

how she feels on Mother’s Day.

Ask her about being left out

of brunches; not receiving flowers.

Not being invited to the conversation.

 

Most will show you a village road

winding through treacherous territory

and strewn with landmines.

She will use terrible words,

she will use honest words. Fear. Infertility.

Biopsy. Surrogacy. Impoverishment.

Coercion. Abandonment. Job loss.

Adoption. Miscarriage. Uncertainty.

She might say, “Not all women

even like babies.” She would say;

stop elevating the act of giving birth

above providing the nurturing.

 

She will talk to you in a calm voice,

while clutching a talisman so tightly

her hands bleed. Praying on it.

Watch her eyes. Watch how she

sends her soul somewhere else

when you ask her. If she ever faced loss-

voluntary or involuntary-

she can tell you, to the day, how old

she or he would be today. She will tell you

about being a mother and midwife

to dreams- hers and yours-

and inspiration to other peoples’ children.

 

She would say, “I am not less

because I did not push something alive

through my cervix.” Please

do not forget her. Spirit mothers

count, too. By all means, celebrate

the birth-mother today, but please

do not forget her. Give her a yellow

rose and hug her, tightly. If she has

lost someone [most have] give her

a white one, too. Watch her eyes.

If you can see yourself reflected

in tears, you have hit home. Hug her

again. Ask her, quietly,

 

“What are you doing

to make the world better,

for all children?” and “How many

of them, do you care about?” You

might be surprised to hear how many

will look towards something unseen

on a horizon only they can see,

and whisper, sincerely,

“No More than All I Can Give,

to Every One of Them.”

Reviews

[Donna]

This is wonderful! Nobody ever things of the Mother's who lost a child or can't have one. Thank you for sharing this!

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Donna, for reading me here, and for the lovely review. I have a tendency to often ask, "who is being left out of this conversation?" and focus on that person or persons when I write. Many of us women do a hell of a lot of mothering that often does go unrecognized- even if we have not given birth or if we lost a child. It warms my heart that you saw what I was going for in this piece.