A series of short stories set in the deep past but inspired by small moments in my own life: seeking to illuminate mundane moments like these lost to the mists of time. These are intended to be little vignettes of every day life: small moments that don't warrant a whole narrative but are the substance of our experience of life on this earth.
Click here to read all previous short stories!
It’s one of the unspeakable truths of motherhood: those taboos that no one speaks of but all mothers recognise, throughout time and space. A shared experience that connects us to those who have mothered before us.
How is it that someone you love so much, who is your very heart and soul, can make you so unspeakably angry, without intention, without trying?
Why won’t it stop?
Why won’t it stop?
Why won’t it stop?
This is the question circling round and round as she grips her head with her hands, as if that will make it all go away. She finds herself rocking, clenching her jaw, her limbs rigid, as her baby lies in the crib screaming. She is sat on the floor, beside him and beside herself.
She’s told him that she’s understood, she’s heard him, she’s listening, she knows something has made him uncomfortable and she’s doing her best to work out what it is. She just needs a little more time.
His little face is screwed up, contorted and deeply creased. It would be cute if he wasn’t piercing her heart with his cries. Yes, piercing her heart: it sounds dramatic, but though his cries frustrate her, it also hurts her to hear him so upset. His pain has become her pain.
She will do anything to take away whatever it is that was causing him to cry. The feeling coursing through her body connects her with him in an embodied way not dissimilar to pregnancy. They are still entwined.
She is a good mother; this she knows. She delights in her little boy more than anything else. He is her whole world, the love of her life, and she enjoys every part of him. Genuinely, truthfully.
So why can’t she stay calm when he cries? Why do her own hot tears pour down her cheeks as she rocks him, implores him to stop? Why does she feel the need to cry out, to scream?
Those who have walked this journey before her, the wise mothers of her village, reassure her, with knowing smiles. She is a good mother. That’s why she feels his pain so intensely.
Take a deep breath. Wipe your tears. Hold your baby.
And we’ll hold you.
Motherhood is hard. It always has been. It always will be.
Motherhood is beautiful. It always has been. It always will be.
Somehow, those opposing statements are both true.
Now, and for mothers throughout history.
Have you read my most recent short stories? They’re based on my own experiences but set in the deep past, trying to draw connections between our day-to-day lives and those who went before us.
Thank you for sharing Holly. Your sentence "His pain has become her pain" really touched me.
Those nights are so hard, but somehow we get through them. They are hell at the time though.