A Mom, a Blog, and the Life In-Between

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Joy (and Guilt) Amid Tragedy

9/11 looms large before us. It's not just the annual remembrance, it's that we're marking a decade since the day our nation was forever changed.

I've shared here how and why 9/11 affected me, though I don't think I've ever mentioned that at the time, I was a federal employee, working in a large complex that housed other federal offices, and that we were in essence evacuated and sent home. I remember all of us huddled around the TV in the conference room, with my boss on the line from DC assuring us he was fine but telling us no one knew what to expect next, and that we needed to get out. There was this dread at that unknown, in seeing the planes slamming into buildings (and a field) in different parts of the country and not knowing where the next one would hit.

I remember leaving and looking up at the sky, almost waiting for the plane(s). I remember the eerie silence in the streets as I made my way home. I remember sitting on my couch the rest of the day, crying and crying, transfixed by the images on my TV. I remember obsessively reading about the victims, wanting to know who they were, and how my thoughts of them would leave me sobbing in the shower; as I cooked dinner; lying in bed at night, too terrified to sleep; as I sat at my desk after we returned to work. I remember the fallout in my own personal life.

I don't think many of us will ever forget the personal ways we were affected by the tragedy, no matter how removed from it we may have been.

But in recent years, 9/11 has come to have a different meaning in my life, one of joy that inevitably makes me feel somewhat ashamed, as if such joy is just plain wrong on a day like this.

I became a mother on 9/11. I birthed a tiny, frog-like baby boy in the wee hours of that day, and from the moment he was coming out, when I glimpsed down and saw that hairy head and my midwife said, "touch your baby," and my fingers felt the hair, the head, the forehead, I have been a different person. The experience transformed me. Seeing and holding that dear thing transformed me. The pure hell of those first three months transformed me. His smile, his smell, his sweet breath, his laughter transformed me.

Every single day of the last almost-six years has had at least one moment that has transformed or opened or devastated me. I have had my eyes opened many times over; I've felt terrible fear; I've been slayed, elated, turned upside-down and inside-out. I am who I am in my core, and yet, I'm nowhere near the person I used to be.

So 9/11 leaves me with very mixed feelings: the lingering sadness, the crazy joy, the guilt at this duality. I think about that day and the victims throughout the day, even as I cover my boy in kisses and sing to him and surround him with gifts. I celebrate him - my light, my all - even as I, in a moment alone as the festivities die down, get a lump in my throat and my eyes well with tears at the thought of all the mothers who can't do what I'm doing, who mourn and die again at the very moment that I thank God for my son and his life.

When I was pregnant, I was due on the 12th, and everyone would say, "Oh, watch, he'll be born on 9/11!" And I'd launch into a (pregnancy hormone-fueled, I'm sure) tirade about, "Hell, no, he will not! He better not! I'll die if this kid is born on the 11th!" So, of course, he was born on the 11th and I immediately felt stupid for my words, because all that mattered was that he was born healthy and was here and he was mine and he was tiny and soft and heartbreakingly awesome. And what's more, he was a sign of hope and joy on a day marred by tragedy.

And that is what I ultimately hold in my heart: that this tragedy marked us all and its sense of loss and sadness remains, will remain. But that despite this tragedy, joy persists. Joy is born and reborn and we celebrate it - we must celebrate it - and feel the guilt and fragility of it all, and carry on despite it. Or because of it.

Labels: motherhood

Posted by Tere @ 9/06/2011 | Permalink |

3 Comments

AmandaDufau posted at 9/07/2011 2:05 PM
You are amazing. That is all.

Lisa posted at 9/10/2011 7:51 PM
Thank you for this post! My birthday is September 11th, so I feel the duality too. So does my mom. A Happy Birthday to your son!

Tere posted at 9/10/2011 8:17 PM
Happy Birthday to you!