A Mother's Tears

David Foster Wallace, in his short story, Incarnations of Burned Children, found in his collection, Oblivion: Stories, leaves the reader with a haunting image: "If you've never wept and want to, have a child."

Even in my love for heavy, some-would-say depressing literature, I personally find this specific story too disturbing to really enjoy. I read it many years ago, and was haunted for months--and, by this one quote, haunted for years--the memory of it has never left my psyche. Wallace's weeping most certainly refers to a suffering, sorrowful place; the cries of a parent when faced with the suffering of their child. But for me, this idea of weeping branches out in so many different directions.

In my first weeks at home, there were so many emotions. Once I began my 'better living through chemistry' regimen treating my postpartum depression, things were much better, and the emotions were real, raw, and amazing.

At night, I often would wake up in anticipation, anxious for Ella to wake up and nurse. I couldn't wait to feel her creeping little fingers, hear her gluttonous breaths, to gaze into her face. I would weep in anticipation. I would weep each evening, knowing that the day was done: loving and reliving every minute of it, and yet, melancholy that it was so quickly in the past. I wept as I realized that as I was anxious to see her smile, but that I didn't want to wish away one moment of the first six weeks. I weep knowing that I will miss her when she is grown, but am excited to know my daughter as a girl, a teenager, a woman. In my opinion, I would define my actions as weeping, but not a weeping from sorrow. It was and is a weeping from a depth that I would never know if I were not a mother.

I know I will have days to weep from sorrow. Weeping for my children, my friends, my family. And I pray for strength in advance. I rejoice that my weeping is based from a heart and life full of joy. I apologize to those of you who have had lifetimes of sorrowful weeping, my thoughts must seem so trite.

As I think about weeping in the bible, it almost always is opposite laughing: Luke 6:21, "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh;" Ecclesiastes 3:4, "A time to weep, and a time to laugh." How interesting that two antonyms can indwell my heart simultaneously. I laugh heartily at Ella's antics--and hidden in my heart is the melancholy weeping that these baby giggles will only last for a season, that this is a fleeting moment; a wonderful season and a heart-stopping moment, but none the less, one that will never be again. I think that is the weight and existence of both emotions that makes either worth feeling. My mother's tears, whether spilled or kept, are dammed in my mother's heart, full of strength and laughter.

Or maybe I just need to up my Zoloft dose.