MOTHERHOOD CONTINUED

Almost since my oldest, Marnie, was born, I had been thinking about how many children we should have. I know I wanted more than one and John felt that the decision to have more children was completely in my camp. I must have had a certain timetable built into my anatomy by my mother’s yearly conception and delivery when I was growing up. We were roughly nine siblings born in 11 years. Therefore, while I was questioning the idea of another baby, we were always otherwise engaged; we were moving, changing jobs, looking for jobs, grieving, or our form of grieving, having nervous breakdowns. There just did not seem to be an opportunity for another baby. When John started talking about was having another baby it seemed reasonable.. Looking back on it now it seems a little rash to complicate our delicate foothold on recovery with a new life.

We did it anyway. Just shows you the power of my irrational side. John seemed stronger. I was still an anxious mess, afraid to answer the phone because it might be work wanting to ask me a question. Read that terrorize me. Or, ask me to sign the graduate certificates that participants earned upon completion of the program I had set up.

My replacement, who had been my assistant, wanted me to sign them because she felt I HAD REALLY BEEN THE AUTHOR OF THE PROGRAM. I FELT NO SUCH OWNERSHIP. Somehow, I typed these in upper case without knowing it.  I was incredulous that it had even happened and I felt no ownership. I think the bigger story here is I felt no ownership or awareness of myself. I am not sure that is past tense either. Actually, I felt like a  professional failure. 

When the new director did come to my house, at her insistence, she explained how excited people were with the new program. She said it was worth the wait. The program had been without a director for the first 4 years of the 5-year program grant when I cam on board. I was in disbelief. 

Because I felt so incompetent and all of those bad, I guess, sad feelings seemed like they were somehow related to my job performance. I had no idea that I was mourning the loss of my mother. Looking back it seems hard to believe that I was so disconnected from my feelings of loss and could only experience them as dread of the workplace.

 I believe that all behavior has meaning to our unconscious selves and furthermore all behavior, whether cellular or systemic, has as its goals survival first, and then growth and transformation. Considering all that, it seems like the loss of my mother was truly too big or too painful for me to bear.  To survive this loss I believe I was protecting myself and creating a new life as well, perhaps to replace my loss or at the very least to distract me from it.

Eileen, our Lou, was born October 21, 1979, not quite a year after my mother died.