My Rocky Mountain Heart

As we are nearing Mother’s Day tomorrow…I have been reflecting on what that means to be a mother and whether I am considered a mother or not. Are you a mother when you have carried a baby inside of you? Or are you only a mother if you get to hold that baby in your arms? Are you a mother because you gave birth? Do you have to go through labor to be a mother? Does loving a little being inside of you and changing your whole life for them make you a mother? Does feeling sick every day for 5 or 6 weeks and having to go to work and press on make you a mother? Does picking out baby names and designing a nursery make you a mother? Does that second line on a pregnancy test make you a mother?

How do you define what a mother is?

When reflecting on the incredible loss I feel at times, that lately likes to surface as intense waves of emotion, I can simultaneously be filled with just as much pride and joy at some of the amazing things happening in my life. Just this week we received my nephew Nolan’s official birth announcement, as well as an official invitation to my little sister’s graduation from Medical School. Honestly, I’m a sister beaming with pride tonight!

But I’m also the mother to an angel baby I never got to meet. And I hate to keep revisiting this topic, but that’s the thing about miscarriage – it changes you and as much as you wish it wasn’t your story, it is. And I’ve come to learn that when I acknowledge it and own it, it’s okay. It’s only when I try to push the feelings away, stuff them deep down and bottle them up that it truly hurts me.

I can’t help but think of the very dualistic nature of life…the joy and the simultaneous pain, the excitement and intense fear, the emptying sadness and the glorious hope. How can we really know gratitude without loss? How can we really know joy without sadness? How can we know faith without also knowing what fear feels like?

This whole thought process brought to mind the Yin and Yang. Per Wikipedia, Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin yang (i.e. taijitu symbol) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.

Life is never one not the other. Life is never pure joy without sadness. Nor is it pure sadness without joy. I think the great challenge is to always be aware of both. To seek the light in the darkness. To find hope from loss. To seek faith from fear. To honor your truth and your story without letting it break your spirit.
I like to think of myself as yin and yang: complementary forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts.
The whole is greater than the assembled parts.
I am not what’s happened to me. Those are the parts but those are not me.

I am so much more than those parts.

I am a dynamic system of forces.

Ever changing.

Growing.

Evolving.

But whole.

Me.