Giving birth
My doctor told me
It was the worst labor he
Ever saw. (Worth it).
Mom
Mom’s Memoir Prompt 4
What do you remember about the stories that your mom, aunts, grandmother, or friends told you about giving birth?
by Mina Loy
I don’t have permission to reprint this, but “Parturition” is a poem by Mina Loy, an early 20th Century poet and one of the founders of Poetry magazine. Her one word “brute” about the child’s father is easily understood. In that pain, on my first child’s birthday, I nearly strangled her father.
As I listened to my mother speak again about the day she gave birth to me, I found myself searching for more. Sounds? Smells? It was a spring day. Was it warm? Was the window open? Did it rain? My aunt and grandmother were there. What did they wear? Did they comfort you? I want her to describe the compassionate doctor she speaks about every time she shares her memories of that day. The day we met.
A good day.
I should have been emptied of life
Giving life
Mina Loy
It felt as though I were emptied of life after each birth, to begin anew. The maiden became a mother, too.
Man or woman, we experience this when we choose a new path.
“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
Gandhi
“Every day I say to myself, ‘Today I will begin.’”
Saint Anthony of the Desert
Feature Image by Sanjasy from Pixabay
Niki Flow 