When I found I had given birth to a human wreckage, to a child that was an imbecile, my heart was broken.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When my son was born, and after a day of lying-in I was told that I could leave the hospital and take him home, I burst into tears. It wasn't the emotion of the moment: it was shock and horror.
Every day is a new sense of tearing my heart out of my body again when I see other children who have been killed, and I know what their families are going through.
When my father passed away and then when later on I gave birth, those are sort of ground-breaking experiences that put everything else into perspective.
With the help of a friend I got father into a wagon, when the crowd had gone. I held his head in my lap during the ride home. I believed he was mortally wounded. He had been stabbed down through the kidneys, leaving an ugly wound.
That was essential to my journey: the ability to love children while simultaneously having your heart broken.
My father's death, my move, and my frightening and difficult delivery created a tremendous amount of stress, pain, and sadness for me. I was practically devastated beyond recovery.
I knew that my father was going to die of heart disease, and I was trying to make a heart for him.
My heart has been resuscitated as a result of becoming a mom.
I had no idea that mothering my own child would be so healing to my own sadness from my childhood.
When I stopped seeing my mother through the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.