My sweet daughter Grace made me a mother 12 years ago. Her sister Lily made me a mother again 6 years ago. Every day since, I have loved and nurtured them as best I know how. It has been a process of learning and growth, mistakes and uncertainties. Mothering them is a core pillar in the foundation of my life.
My motherhood is also invisible.
Because both of them died before birth, the world does not see my motherhood or the value of my mothering. As a mother without a physical child here to tangibly nurture, I am forever caught between the worlds of child-free and child-filled.
I am child-less.
For the most part, now, I am happy with my life though it looks nothing like I wanted or expected it to look. I’ve made peace with the paradoxes of my life. I love the quiet even as I long for the chatter of little girls. I enjoy the freedom even as I ache for the lifetime of responsibilities and commitments and joys a living child creates. I revel in the adventure of travel even as I miss the adventures of parenting that would have been.
Getting to this place of settling into the paradox and complexity of this in-between world of child-less-ness has taken years of practice and tears and grief and intention. A lifetime of mothering without your children present is long, and longer still if unable to find happiness with this new life of in-between.
The truth is most people won’t understand the reality of living in this world of in-between. They can’t. Our culture likes clear distinctions and easy-to-understand categories. Mothers like me, the invisible mothers of the world? We don’t fit well into either category.
We make people feel uncomfortable because they don’t know where to put us. They don’t know how to define us. They want life to be simple and neat and clear-cut.
And that’s okay.
I’ve learned in my years as an invisible mother that it’s okay when people don’t understand my experience. It’s hard and sometimes painful, yes, especially when they dismiss the value of my daughters’ lives and my motherhood. I often wish more people could understand the grief and complexity of my way of being a mother. But I’ve learned to let go of those people who can’t or are unwilling to try to appreciate the value of my in-between life. Instead, I embrace and am grateful for the those who do get it or are willing to try to understand it.
Life got infinitely easier for me when I let go of my attachment to trying to make others understand this life of mine, especially with those who couldn’t or didn’t want to understand it. That release left me with more energy and love to give to those who choose to join me in the complexity of life.
And to be honest, I’m not sure I will ever fully understand or get this in-between life of mine. I don’t know that I’ll ever really understand how I ended up child-less, forever with a foot in two worlds.
I’ve learned to let that be okay, too.
I wish that my life could be simpler. I wish I could simply be child-free or child-filled, fitting neatly into one world or the other. I wish that others saw my motherhood more easily, that they saw and valued the brief lives of my children and how I mother them still.
Although my life appears child-less, my mother heart is full. My love for my daughters is both free and full, endlessly flowing for them. I am both free and full in this complex life of in-between.
My motherhood might be invisible, but it will never truly be less.
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