My mother often told me the story of how I was born on a cold day in November. She repeated the tale many speaking of how she and my father were living in a garage apartment in the Heights neighborhood of Houston. She was nine months pregnant when a fall wind brought pecans to the ground from a huge tree on the property. She donned my father’s wool army coat and sat down among the leaves to fill a paper sack with the delicious nuts. In the middle of her task her contractions began so she climbed the stairs to her rented home and called my father at his work. He came as quickly as possible and drove her to Height’s Hospital where I was born a few hours later. 

Mama seemed to repeat that story at the same time each year when fall used to bring cooler temperatures to southeast Texas. She would smile in remembrance and as I listened I felt the love in each of her words. It would be years before I was old enough to envision how young she was on that day of my birth and how much I was part of her dreams for the future. Now that I am growing older I view my mother’s life story through the lens of maturity and understand more and more how much she wanted me to understand the love that she felt for me.

My mother-in- law would often tell a similar tale of the time when my husband was born. She outlined the details of his birth as though she was speaking of it for the very first time. When I was younger such stories like hers and my mom’s irritated because I heard them over and over again. I did not realize then how much we mothers cherish the moments when our children enter this world. We truly change in that magical moment when we bring a new life into the long history of being human. While it may seem to be only a natural occurrence we somehow understand the spirituality of that miracle that is repeated over and over again in places far and near. 

Upon the recent death of one of my former students those of us who knew her immediately thought of her husband and her children. We understood the great loss that they were feeling. It was only when I attended the rosary for her that my attention turned to her parents who seemed to be in a kind of stupor as they no doubt recalled every moment of their child’s life. I found myself wondering if the young woman’s mother was remembering the day on which her daughter was born. Did she think of those cries from her baby and remember the first time her child took and step and began the journey of walking away into her own adult life? As an older woman I felt her pain in a way that I had not before considered. Losing a child no matter what the age has to be devastating. 

I have yet to meet a woman who did not have an almost sacred bond with her offspring. There are of course exceptions but most of the time a mother is tied to her babies in a mystical way that never fades throughout time. We give our adult children the wings that they need to fly away but our thoughts are with them every single day even when they are far away. I suppose that those stories of birth that my mother and mother-in-law told again and again were their way of remembering the solemn duty that they lovingly embraced to be part of creating a new human being to walk among us on this earth. 

I still remember my grandmother telling me stories of my father after he had died. Even as a child I realized how much she missed him. I knew the toll that his death had taken on my mother but my grandmother showed me how her bond with him was just as intertwined with her life. She was never the same person that she had once been after he was gone. She carried on with her life with courage and folksy optimism but a bit of the light in her eyes disappeared with his passing. 

My mother once told me that my grandmother had confided to her that she has lost her parents, her first husband and her siblings but it was the death of her child that hit her the hardest. I suppose that over time I realized more and more why losing a child is so tragic even when that child is an independent adult. I have since spoken with friends and relatives who have endured such a thing and everyone of them says the same thing. They never quite get over the death of a child. 

We humans tend to believe that there is a certain way that life should unfold. When the unthinkable happens it feels as though the whole universe has tilted and created a terrible catastrophe. Parenting never really ends even when we give our children the space that they need to become themselves. We think of them in the morning and before we fall asleep at night. We listen for their cries for help and worry when they seem to be awry. It is part of our nature as moms and no doubt as dads as well. 

Family bonds run deeply just as they should. We seem to be programed to watch over each other. Such feelings are part of every culture, every religion, every way of life. We are united in loving our children which makes wars created by individuals and groups yearning for power feel so wrong. The ordinary people are mostly wanting only to live their lives, take care of their families. War turns all of that atilt. 

For some reason I think of such things in this moment when the people of Ukraine are fighting for their freedoms after being invaded by Russia. I ponder the wars continuing in the Middle East. I know in my bones that mothers around the world only want their babies to be safe and wonder why we can’t find ways to live in peace. It should be more than just a mother’s dream to hope for an end to violence and loss and death. When will we ever learn?