A MOTHER'S WAIL
Bearing witness, interconnection, and holding unthinkable space.
Hi friends, I had a whole other post ready for you this week, but here’s what’s burning in my heart. The memory below is a tough one, but it was a moment of profound oneness despite difference. This is my wish for our broken world. May my offering somehow be of benefit, and may all beings be safe, happy, healthy, and FREE.
Sending my love to you. xx
Years ago, I stood frozen in the doorway of Room 818 as the Children’s Hospital staff ran back and forth along the hall. Inside our room, my son, Lou, who was in treatment for cancer at the time, was watching the film Sing! with my mom. It was the scene where the mama pig, Rosita, dances up and down the grocery store aisle to the Gipsy Kings’ song, “Bamboléo.” As the wailing grew louder from the room next door, my mom and I spoke without speaking. She held Lou, and I quickly closed the door behind them, joining the other mothers in their doorways, the wailing flying like fire over “Bamboléo,” straight to our hearts.
Though I had never heard sounds like that before, I knew in the deepest part of my body what had happened.
The mother next door had lost her child.
I looked on in disbelief at the other moms, all of us frozen. The staff formed a circle outside, their heads down.
Do something! I wanted to scream. But nobody moved.
I watched as the mom at the end of the hall, the one in the AC/DC pajamas who didn’t seem to like me very much, slowly closed her door as well.
Were we trying to drown out the mother’s wails so our kids wouldn’t hear them, or were we subconsciously trying to keep what had happened from coming for us, too?
To my left, Cindy, the mom who loved to run, had just come back from her daily jog. As she removed her earbuds, I watched her piece it all together. She quickly closed the door behind her child, then slid down the frame, as though in slow motion, and landing silently at my feet.
What a dysfunctional family we were up until that moment. Either laughing or bickering, always getting on each other’s nerves in the cramped quarters of the pediatric cancer ward. But as the mother continued to wail, our eyes locked; it seemed as if our hearts fused. We grieved as if it were our own child, as though the wailing came from inside our own chests.
"Make it stop," Cindy whispered, her head between her legs.
In my frozen state, I didn’t know if she meant the song “Bamboléo” or the mother’s wails, both of which continued on.
"Make it stop!" Cindy said louder.
"But how?" I wanted to ask my own mother, still inside with my child.
Tell me how.
I once heard a wail possibly like this - a different mother, a different type of loss and grief. I was in my early years of my psychology doctoral program. One of my supervisions encouraged me and a couple other trainees to attend a court hearing for a juvenile defendant. At the end of the hearing, the judge ruled that this boy would be tried as an adult. Immediately from the left, his mother began to wail. She knew in that instance that he would be lost to her, one way or another. Her family members led her to the hallway and we silently shuffled after. I remember her wails echoing and bouncing around that sterile hallway. I stood with my fellow trainees, each of us looking at each other in wide-eyed horror, as we listened to her sorrow fill the space in front of us while behind us the judge and attorneys placed their lunch order. The spectrum of grief some mothers carry…. it boggles my soul.
Life brings us mystery. Every day. Pure presence and elation, deep disappointment, quiet mercy, crushing sorrow, and jubilant joy. We experience with others or alone. The wave keeps coming and we keep moving, even if we don't want to and when we want to make it stop. Deep belly breathing brings presence and calms our heart and mind, even in the storm. The boat is always there to hold us, reminding us to surrender and let go. As you face such extraordinary moments, hold your heart, count the blessings that you can and know you are doing the greatest work you can for one another. I hold a smile for you for whenever you remember to need one. And in the meantime, thank you for your profound presence and the precision of your words to connect us all together. Namaste