The Horror, The Indifference

The shared pain and terror of motherhood in the age of mass shootings

This is a newsletter about my individual experience within the very common experience of being a first-time mother who is trying not to lose herself or go insane. I try to keep it light-hearted but honest, neither candy-coated nor unnecessarily sour.

Today’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde,Texas that as of Tuesday evening PST has left at least 21 people-- including at least 18 elementary-aged children--dead has made it particularly difficult to feel as though I am not lost or crazy.

I'm betting that is a day that a lot of people feel lost and crazy in the same way that I do. If you believe you might be one of those people, read on. If not, feel free to click the little X button in the corner of your browser or go ahead and read the next message in your inbox. My feelings won't be hurt. I won't even know you rolled your eyes and said "Ugh, no thanks" to yourself unless you tell me, and letting somebody on the internet know that you don't like their writing is, generally, a waste of both your time and theirs.

I'll resume being light-hearted the next time I feel it's possible.

Being a mother changes the brain. We become more aware of danger. We become more empathetic. We become so empathetic that sometimes it feels like we all contain each other.

I know that the love I feel for my daughter– the primitive maternal love I couldn’t ignore if I wanted to– runs through the brains and veins of the millions of other mothers, billions of other mothers, trickling down my block, throughout the city like streetlights and headlights, spreading from one ocean to another, up and down the land masses, around the world, forward and backward in time. The hope and pain of mothers sustains all of human history and every moment of the future.

This four-dimensional current carries with it the ferocious devotion every mother feels, can feel, has felt. Mothers at the moment of birth, overwhelmed and with a naked screaming stranger on their chest, mothers waking up from trauma, their babies down the hall in the NICU, mothers whose babies do not make it.

Mothers who realize they’ve never dressed something so tiny before. Mothers intoxicated by the way their babies’ hair smells. Mothers holding their babies for the first time, for the last time.

Mothers who worry about feeding their babies with their bodies, who worry about finding formula for their babies, the mothers who cannot get away from people who would harm their babies, the mothers who escape, the mothers who have their babies taken from them, the mothers who boil dirty water so their babies can drink it, the mothers who purify the air so their babies can breathe it, the mothers who cross borders under extremely dangerous circumstances so their babies can have a better life, the mothers in the safety of cul-de-sacs keeping one hand on their babies while they bathe them with little washcloths, the mothers who cry in the car after dropping their kids off at daycare because they hope they make friends, mothers of kids who are sick, mothers in hospital waiting rooms, the mothers who find the strength to lift heavy objects off of their children, the mothers who are alone, the mothers who are happy, the mothers who are surrounded by people but still feel alone. It’s all one big electric fence.

The mothers who are proud, the mothers who are afraid, the mothers who are angry.

The mothers who pack lunches children for school and put their children on the bus. The mothers who un-crumple permission slips shoved in the bottom of backpacks and make sure their babies’ homework is legible. The mothers who try their best. The mothers who get the worst phone call in the world. The mothers who wonder if we’re living in hell. The mothers so angry they cannot speak, the mothers so shattered they cannot stand.

The mothers whose babies suffer the unthinkable at the hands of the monstrous. The mothers whose worst fears are realized. The mothers who have never met them but ache for them, the mothers who cry for them, the mothers who rush home from work today to hug their babies (who could be any age, babies are forever), the mothers whose babies are adults now, the mothers who turn off the news and muffle the sound of their sobs in a child-sized hoodie.

Nothing I could say or write could possibly make anything better. This should not have happened. This should not keep happening. There is something deeply sick about this country, and those in power to change things are, as always, the most insulated from the consequences of that sickness.

I wish the mothers in pain today nothing but peace. I wish the people responsible for and indifferent to the harm that came to those babies nothing but pain.

I am one person, except I’m not. And neither are you, and neither are any of the more than 18 mothers in Texas who are feeling the worst pain imaginable today. My hope is that within the spooky brain-fuck wavelength that connects every mother lies a strength we haven’t fully harnessed. On days like today, we cannot let go of that or turn away.

It’s the only way we can save ourselves, if that's still possible.

Image via Shutterstock