All it took was one word to break my heart again.
That word was “Mama.”
I was down in the dumps anyway as I took my usual walk down Cedar Street. A migraine had dogged me all weekend. I missed a music jam I was looking forward to. I was tired of being alone.
A German shepherd standing in a driveway reminded me of Annie and all the dogs I have lost, including Heidi, the German shepherd I lost along with my first marriage.
Then I passed these two little brown-haired boys, one maybe two years old, the other maybe six.
As the little one stared at me, the big one shouted, “He might call you ‘Mama.’”
And then he did. “Mama!”
Gulp. No one has ever called me Mama.
I smiled and waved. “I don’t mind,” I assured the older boy as tears threatened. “He’s cute.”
What? Like a puppy? It was a dumb thing to say.
I let the tears fall as soon I got out of their sight. The pain of never having children was just as bad 20 years past menopause as it was when I was 35.
That scarred place in my heart breaks every time this happens.
A couple weeks ago at church, I was playing the piano at Mass. The family close to me in the front row included an adorable toddler happily squeezed between her mother and grandmother. Black hair, brown skin, big eyes, dimples. If I had had a little girl, she would have looked a lot like this one, maybe not as brown, but she’d have the same black hair and brown eyes.
Grandma held a big cloth book while the child turned the pages.
Oh my God, I wanted to be one of those women. I wanted to hold that baby. But I never would. I had no claim to her.
All I could do was keep playing the piano.
Back on my walk, I was visiting a neighbor’s dogs a little later when the boys came down the street with an older girl. In trying to keep up, the little guy stumbled and fell. He was not hurt, but he looked at me and cried “Mama!” I kept petting the dogs while the girl scooped up her little brother. She was already a mother-in-training. I missed that class.
I belong with the dogs, I told myself. I’m a dog person. I’m going to get another dog soon. I will feel better.
Why do I share this today? Because it still hurts. Because I want you to know that while you will feel okay most of the time about not having children and will build a good life without them, it’s still going to hurt when you least expect it. That scar is there, and it’s brittle.
As Jody Day, founder of Gateway Women and author of the book Living the Life Unexpected, likes to say, our pain is an unacknowledged, disenfranchised grief. When someone dies, it’s awful, but everyone sees and understands your loss. They hold you while you cry. They bring casseroles. They know it hurts and give you a break. When you get a divorce, lose a job, or crash your car, everybody sympathizes.
But not having children doesn’t seem to count. How can you grieve what you never had? Besides, they say, unless you were physically unable to bear children, you made the choices that led to this situation. Right? So get over it.
It’s not that easy. It will hurt sometimes. It’s okay. Cry, stomp, curse, whatever you have to do. Talk about it with people who might be sympathetic. Try to explain: When I hear the word Mama, it kills me.
It will pass. You’ll go on with the other wonderful things in your life. But it’s never gone.
Listen to Jody Day’s talk on Disenfranchised grief and know that those of us who experience this kind of grief are aware of your tears and your pain and acknowledge that it is real.
Are there words or situations that trigger your emotions? Do the people around you understand why you’re upset? Let’s talk about it in the comments.
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
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I have a new Substack titled “Can I Do It Alone?” Since my first post on April 1, it has taken off like wildfire. See what all the fuss is about at https://open.substack.com/pub/suelick/p/introducing-can-i-do-it-alone?r=ejjy9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Day, who has become a psychotherapist since the first edition came out, applies her new skills here as she writes about guilt, ambivalence, grief, and the many other difficult feelings we may be having about our failure to have children. Did we really not want to? Should we have made difference choices? Will we ever stop feeling horrible?
Childless by Marriage 