Paradise Preoccupied

From one mother to her child in an attempt to explain, assuage and apologize.

My Darling Child,

You are my most cherished treasure, and the fact that I am better off with you … that the world is better off with you … is a truth beyond measure. No matter that your very existence brings joy to me and hope to a planet that sees every child a possible savior, through no fault of your own your life began under odious circumstances and I feel no little shame for the part I played.

The processes involved in leading to you to becoming who, where and what you are cannot be ignored, and as we now understand it is important there be no secrets, nothing hidden. The era of secrecy is over, and only through total, brutal and complete honesty and full acceptance of parental culpability can we hope to arm you for a lifetime of potential comments that may arise from knowledge of your beginnings. You must know where you came from, and you must start that knowing now.

I have long hinted that something was amiss, and I have seen in your eyes and your behavior that you caught not a little of the guilt that shadowed those hints, so now that you are approaching your fifth birthday the time has come to divulge as fully as possible the roots of your existence; to do less would be an unforgivable omission, prompted by love, of course, but such a negligence of motherly duty that you would eventually blame me for leaving so many gaps in your story. You may not yet be able to understand everything, but at least with most of the information provided you will in future be able to specify questions and ask for details as you need and can process them.

Before there was you, there was the dream of you. Your father and I had longed for a child for a number of years, but had not had any luck. We had even gone as far as to consider adoption, but when the time came to evaluate our suitability we didn’t do well and were turned down.

You have to understand just how desperate I was to have a child to forgive what I next agreed to do, so please … please … consider my longing for you as you strive to understand the lengths I was willing to go to get you.

I do not wish to lay blame, but since it’s the truth I am telling here, I must reveal that it was your father who came up with the plan. I was appalled, and convinced only after a good deal of time. He wore me down with pastel images of all things baby, talk of strollers and cribs and sweet baby smiles. In fact, he even dusted himself with baby powder and plied me with wine in his attempts to get me to go along with his scandalous proposal.

As ashamed as I am, and as repulsive as the facts are, the truth is that your father and I had sex to make you, and more than once.Yes, yes … I know how this must strike you and how your first inclination might be to be so very ashamed of us, but this is the raw truth you must comprehend if your childhood is to be lived healthily.

It is not a pretty truth, but a truth, nonetheless, that time after time I lay on my back with my legs spread apart showing my private parts while your father placed his swollen peepee into my body and grunted and groaned and sweated and cried, soon leaving me in such a state! I was a disgusting, sticky mess, and could do nothing but lie in the filthy residue in hopes that the base biology would do its work.

Over the next months, my body ballooned, taking on repulsive dimensions. My boobies could no longer be contained in my undergarments, and, I am forced to admit, I often thought of having sex again as hormones took over much of my mind.

Then came the birth.

I have never known such pain, and hope never to again. For eighteen hours, my body knew more agony than fire or shattering bones could cause, and with unrelenting regularity. My back felt like it was cracking open every two minutes. I vomited until there was nothing left but the dregs of bile, but that came, too, hour after hour. I screamed and screamed and screamed. I cursed your father, not only for the indignity of his fertilization, but for the resulting torture.

Eventually, but only after almost an entire day of the worst suffering I had ever known, I managed to push you out of by belly through my peepee … I know how horrible that must be for you to know, but it was the only way to get you out of me … while a great amount of poop came out of my butt at the same time.

A sickly gray and lumpy cord ran from your belly button into my peepee, and when the doctor cut it you began to make noise … you mewled like some sort of animal.

You were a wrinkled, bald worm-like thing, with mottled, peeling skin and a head the shape of an onion, and covered in slime and blood. Nurses sucked some repellant gunk out of your nose, put drops in your eyes, poked your heel and drew some blood.

I cannot tell you how sorry I am that your beginnings are as horrid as they are, nor hope to absolve myself for the part I played. I only hope that you can forgive your father and me, and understand that this is often the way things happen. Also, I hope by laying this all out for you now in graphic, yet somewhat age-appropriate detail I will avoid any and all fallout that might occur over the course of your life. No matter what, you know Mama has been honest with you.

Ashamed and guilty as sin, but loving you more than anything and praying you can forgive,

Mother

Although I have no doubt this will go completely over the heads of many who have taken to reading me regularly with no intention or capability of comprehension, those who do get it will understand this post an allegory. The intention is to address the wearing of hair shirts by adoptive parents.

Definition links provided in hopes of helping more challenged readers grasp concepts beyond their usual reach.

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