My Mother Heart
by Samantha Jeffers AgarI crawl back into bed.
I’ve just nursed my little one to sleep again, but don’t know how long it will be before he wakes, teething or hungry. I slip under the comforter as my husband Tim slumbers next to me. I succumb to its warm embrace and hope that Noah, eight months, and Griffin, two and a half, will sleep until sun-up.
It is three in the morning. If I get back to sleep now I can manage about three hours of sleep before I am required to rise and behave like a functioning human being.
But I won’t get back to sleep for a while. Now that I’m awake, my mind is a tumult of stress and recent events. My body is tense, poised to respond to demands to breastfeed, change a diaper or deal with nightmares. My thoughts rush forth in a fatigued, reckless release: I remember the child abuse story I heard on the radio today, then worry that Griffin might climb out of his crib and find his way outside in the night, scaling baby gates and opening locked doors. I tell myself this is ridiculous, then wonder whether or not I have turned up the monitor loud enough to hear his cries. Unreturned phone calls nudge me. Accidents, suicides, sudden deaths and terminal illnesses have affected those around us lately. I think of our own recent brushes with mortality.
As my thoughts race, I tense up. My heart gallops, my breath becomes quick and shallow. Dizziness flattens me.
Shit. I’m having a panic attack.
I find my first grey hair two weeks before my 35th birthday. I tear it out, place it on a dark book cover and examine the pigment—or lack of it. I can’t believe this. I’m not ready to be old.
I shouldn’t be shocked. The residual postpartum depression and lack of personal space that goes with having two boys in diapers has taken a toll. Some days, a hot shower is nothing more than a dim memory, a fantasy eroded by grasping little hands and mouths. I am forever exhausted, surrounded by laundry, half-eaten meals, barf and toddler play dates. It’s not that I feel old, exactly. It’s that there is no time to contemplate what I feel in the first place. Even if I wanted to, something bigger looms. My stepmother is about to have a piece of her skull removed.
When Dad met Jan, it was a relief for all of us. In some serendipitous, magical plan, they reunited after almost 40 years, having been friends in their early 20s. Six children and several marriages later, they met at a mutual friend’s birthday party here, on the opposite coast of Canada.
My stepmother is beautiful, intelligent and generous. She tells wonderful stories. My boys adore their “Nana Jana,” who is always at the ready with a silly song or creative game. She has become so dear to me, and I cherish her as the keeper of my father’s heart. After he spent 15 years on his own, Jan brings him such joy. With her, he can exhale and be himself again.
The lump has been there, on the back of her skull, her whole life. Though doctors have reassured her before, she asks again. This time, two months go by—an extraction, tests, consultations. We wait. They tell us it’s a tumour. There’s a small chance it’s a big problem. Surgery is scheduled for six weeks later.
Yes, I think, get rid of it. She’s frightened, and so are we. We discuss the statistics, what removal and recovery will entail, that the doctor is reportedly a genius in the operating room. We tell her we love her and that it’s going to be alright. But I feel her drawing inward. I don’t know what to do.
My 35th birthday draws closer. I don’t make plans, don’t want to celebrate until we know Jan’s okay. I compose letters to her doctor, not to send, but to form intention. I look up the patron saint of surgeons, though I’ve never entered a confessional booth in my life. I make my request of the universe: let us keep her.
The day of the surgery Dad wants to wait alone. The day is surreal: I still have to manage tantrums, errands and lost dinky cars as I listen for the phone. Finally, he calls. They got it all. She’s going to be okay. We cry together on the phone. I don’t say it but he knows I know: if Jan hadn’t come through this, he wouldn’t have either.
Despite an asymmetrical haircut to accommodate the sutures, Jan looks refreshed and elegant even a few days post-op. On my birthday she and Dad meet me and the boys for dinner. It’s perfect. I am grateful.
We get the final lab results on the tumour. Cancer-free. Elation! “I’m walking on air,” Jan says, and I know it’s true. I don’t say it, but she always does, just a little.
It’s almost 4 a.m. now. I could wake my husband, but he is as tired as I am. I’m stuck in our bedroom near the baby’s crib—the monitor is in Griffin’s room for the night, so if Noah cries and I am not there, Tim will stir, unaware of my current state and annoyed that I’m not there to prevent the racket. For now, I endure, breathe; try to contain the chaos within.
Our most recent crisis is what brings me to this boiling point. Two weeks ago, Tim took his dirt bike out. Despite his years of experience and skill, he rammed headfirst into a tree, broke his nose and injected a three-inch stick into his sinus cavity. The initial x-ray didn’t show organic matter, and by the time he realized something was in there, a week had passed. More time passed while he waited for surgery.
The wait infuriated me. Tim was in pain and fighting infection. We shuffled the kids back and forth to doctors’ offices, hospitals and Dad and Jan’s place. Our patience was in shreds. Tim mused that he should just remove the stick with some tweezers—after all, he had reset the break in his nose the week before. Thankfully, he waited for the surgeon, and is recovering well with almost no scar.
Yesterday, he handed me a piece of paper. “Uh, this is kind of weird. I mean, I feel really odd about it. Anyway, read it. Let me know if you have questions. I’m gonna go and get my mind into something else. Okay?”
It was an outline of what I should do if he died. You know, to settle his business accounts and such. I sat staring at it. Jesus. What would I do if he were gone? How would I give our boys the incredible journey we’ve planned for them? Exist without Tim by my side? He is my heart, my best friend and my reference point in life.
As a kid, I concluded there is a rule of opposites in life. To know joy, one should know sadness. To feel peace, one must experience distress. I was always thinking about such things. The old-school fairy tales of my childhood had presented, without apology, the battle between good and evil. This, I suppose, was how I processed it.
Now, as a parent, my awareness of the world’s darker forces is magnified. After Griffin’s birth I was traumatized by visions of him flying through the air, falling from great heights, or being stolen from us. I was afraid to trust anyone with my baby. This was partly irrational and brought on by postpartum depression. But it was more than that. My husband felt it too. Before parenthood, we were committed to one another, but autonomous, responsible only for ourselves. Now, potential dangers render us vulnerable in a new way. It’s no longer just about me or him. We want our children safe, joyful. Untouched by malice.
My children’s eyes are a million shades of blue. Griffin’s are the sky, Noah’s the ocean. They twinkle and seek joy and show me the generations of magic that precede them. They connect us to one another in a new and beautiful way.
When Griffin laughs, I recognize my mother in his unabashed joy and the way his hair looks windblown regardless of the weather. Tim’s mother resides there, too, in Griffin’s button nose and intelligent gaze. Which instrument will he choose when his love of music takes form? On the couch after his nap, we cuddle, hold hands. Absentmindedly, he pinches the ends of my fingers, an affectionate gesture he began around the time he turned two. This amazes me; his father has done it for years.
Noah’s smile is full of light. My sister’s dimple appears, a crease in his cheek below the left eye. I see Tim’s dad in the mischievous scrunch of his nose. Noisier than his brother, he’ll spend an entire afternoon bellowing and humming. He will be an artist, maybe a doctor. He has long fingers and a healing touch like my father—warm, strong, reassuring. Noah’s eyes close when I nurse him and, as he gulps greedily, his little hands caress me firmly in thanks. I am so full of gratitude, for both of my boys.
The impossible joy of parenthood juxtaposes with the horrendous reality that children can be taken from us. Postpartum depression and recent health issues for those closest to us have intensified our awareness of this. People in my community have faced sudden loss. What if it was Jan or Tim? What if it were my boys?
Now it is almost 5 a.m. I try to calm myself, but my thoughts are a direct product of crashing hormone levels and lack of sleep. I hear babies crying in the white noise of our fan, babies I know aren’t mine, aren’t real, but are there all the same. My throat is tight. I push away my thoughts, get up, and check on Griffin. He sleeps sideways as usual, blankets askew, golden hair plastered to his forehead. I kiss his flushed cheeks, smooth his locks, tuck him in.
Assured of his safety, I sneak back into bed for the last time. I think of my sons’ silky cheeks, their little pudgy arms around me, the way their magnificent laughter rings together. Gradually, I am lulled—released from my fear—called back to the present by exhaustion.
I drift. I breathe. I sleep.
My boys, from somewhere in their dreams, mend my mother heart.
Samantha Jeffers Agar, mother of two magical boys, is a Victoria writer, artist and teacher. She has been published on www.themomoirproject.com and www.urbanmommies.com. 
