I Love You This Much

After a lifetime of being uncertain I didn't want children, I realized I was more like my mother than I thought.

PART 1

“Children are not something to be taken lightly!” my mother exclaims from the antique wooden chair in my kitchen. Her Mississippi accent is even more pronounced on the topic of motherhood. “If you don’t want children, then do not have children. I will not be upset.” She is dramatic when she speaks, almost always, and I do not believe her when she says this. The morning sunlight spills through the window and onto her soft olive skin, warming her from what must be my cold, childless heart. 

I’ve been having some rendition of this conversation with my mother for years. She didn’t understand how a person could be “on the fence” for so long. I set my hands down on the kitchen island and exhaled as I prepared to explain my position, once again.

At 31, I got married. Which, by southern-female standards, qualifies me as a fossilized relic. I’m sure they’d find a spot for me at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. At 32, I escaped the baby queries because, as mom always said, “You want to have a few years, just the two of you.” At 33, we discussed possibly trying, thinking it would be nice to join the ranks of parenthood before 35. My mother, as well as many other women who have no relation to me, have not hesitated to remind me that 35 is high risk; a geriatric pregnancy, which is a term most certainly coined by a man. 

Instead, my husband, a musician, went on tour and I went with him. We spent nearly two years hauling luggage, hailing cabs, and checking in and out of AirBnBs, hotels, and the guest rooms of generous friends across the country. Eventually, we settled into a rental in the Hudson Valley, about two hours north of New York City. It was a large old farmhouse on 10 acres of lush, green land. Plenty of peace and quiet atop sprawling, jade-colored hills. Plenty of space for a guest room—and a nursery.

I understood where she was coming from. I’d been putting off having a baby almost as long as I’d been physically able to. I’d published essays about it, sought holistic resolution, and even gone off birth control while my husband and I waffled over our decision. I’d done everything except commit. 

Growing up in the Deep South in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was simply assumed that all women would go off to make babies someday, an assumption that unnerved me. “One day, when you have a child, you’ll understand,” my mother would say.

“How old are you?” an acquaintance of my mom’s once asked me, cornered in the magazine section at Barnes & Noble. She squinted her eyes and tilted her head, examining me like a whole anchovy on a salad.

“Twenty-six,” I said. 

She tossed her head back, relieved. 

“Oh ok!” she smiled. “You’ve got some time.” Some time! Thank you for your permission, Linda!

For more than a decade, these inquiries sent me into a private panic. I quietly questioned motherhood, observing and calculating what it might mean for my work, my relationships, my body, and my sanity. My worries were the same as many potential mothers—such little sleep, so many tears (from me and the baby), and a juggling act of epic proportion. Each time a friend of mine had a baby, I outwardly asked them, “Did you poop? Did it hurt? How long were you in labor?” But internally I continued to wonder: Why would anyone choose to be so exhausted? What happens if you don’t like your baby? Why would you elect to have a human pushed out of a hole in your body? What if they grow up to be a sociopath? In general, I was an encyclopedia of concerns about parenthood.

Ultimately, what I couldn’t understand is why we have children. There is no knowing what’s on the other side of birth; it is a leap of faith I could not wrap my head around. It’s certainly not for our own personal comfort. It’s not to give a child a perfect life, as no such thing exists. Is it to validate our own experiences? Does the desire to have children come from a selfish or selfless place?

My closest friends with young children appeared perpetually exhausted and annoyed. “Once you have kids, your weekends will never be the same,” one said. Or they’d volunteer, “Just wait until you have kids. You’ll never [insert desired activity such as ‘shower’ or ‘have sex’] again.”

Another good friend told me, “I love my daughter, but I hate being a dad.” My time with him has traditionally been spent downing carafes of red wine or clinking shots of whiskey in the corners of dark, raucous bars. The last time I saw him in Paris, he toured me around the city’s iconic slate-gray streets on his motorcycle, bar hopping and eating paté and cheese until I tumbled home with just enough energy to climb the four flights of winding, rococo-inspired staircase.

“Don’t do it,” he once wrote to me in a text, partially kidding, but also not. He expressed how much he hated losing his freedom and his inability to get up and go anywhere. I’d heard this sentiment expressed before by several new parents. “Your time doesn’t belong to you anymore.” My friends’ sales pitches for parenthood were terrible.

I never worked as a babysitter, and the only children in my life were my niece, nephew, and a handful of my friends’ kids. I liked the kids I knew, but I didn’t care for kids in general. Their unpredictability and penchants for untimely meltdowns jarred me. Still, the potential of motherhood sat like a defiant toddler in the back of my mind. Maybe because ideas that have been ingrained in us since childhood can be hard to abandon. Or maybe I couldn’t see my desire to become a parent through the pressure I received from everyone else.

Sometimes I’d quietly allow myself to entertain the possibility of motherhood, though I didn’t dare share this with my mother. An arsenal of smocked dresses and crocheted booties would have arrived at my doorstep in 3–5 business days. I couldn’t risk her debilitating disappointment should motherhood never happen for me. But I was curious. I bet I’d like my kid, I thought. I remembered the way my nephew’s gummy smile lit my heart on fire when he was a baby; the fierce, startling protectiveness I felt for him; the feeling—no, the terrifying knowing—that I’d use my bare hands to murder anyone who ever hurt him. 

Yet the time never seemed right, and when I explained all this to my mother, again, in the spacious kitchen of my upstate home, my husband was knee-deep in a bout of depression and a quarter-life crisis. Not exactly an optimal time for baby-making. “Well, like I said,” she patted her knees with force and finality, “I will not be upset.”

My mother tried desperately to act as though she would support my decision to remain childless, but her desire was obvious. It hung like rainwater in every word spoken. “Once I retire, I can be available whenever—sorry, if you ever—need me to take care of the baby.” The baby. The fictional baby that did not, and might never exist.

While my mother worked as a florist and receptionist, the only career she has ever had (and honestly, ever wanted) was holding the title of Mother: a job that holds no promotions or quarterly accolades; just the roll-up-your-sleeves, do-it-for-the-love-of-the-job kind of work. It’s not that she is unable to excel in other areas of interest, but motherhood is alive in her. It’s visible to everyone who’s ever met her and is the source from which she derives all of her joy. 

photo by Love and Wolves Co.

Though our relationship has not been without some mild turbulence, my mother is my respite. Never have I known a space where I could show up full of quirks, stories that are too long and boring, with ideals she finds naive or extreme, and expect to be loved unconditionally. My brother and I practically received standing ovations for waking up in the morning. No detail about our lives was unimportant and this all-praise, all-the-time parenting phenomenon surprisingly grounded me in uncertain times and even encouraged my individuality.

 In middle school and high school, I made some unfortunate fashion choices: An outfit of head-to-toe florals, which included a Blossom hat and leggings of the same print; an untucked white button-down with wide-leg black slacks and a tie. Shoulder pads. Shrunken t-shirts. Tapestry vests. Mom fanned the flame. “You look so chick,” she’d say, which is not to be mistaken for “chic.”  She believed everything about us was special. "You know your brother is left-handed," she'd say as though he'd been blessed by the Pope himself. "You were born with an angel's kiss," she'd say sweetly, referring to the unsightly red blotch that covered my eye at birth.

The 90s were a cruel decade for minimalism

She and dad raised my brother and me to be independent thinkers and doers. They encouraged us to never follow the crowd; told us we were capable of anything we put our minds to. That hard work and dedication paid off, and there was no reason why we (yes, us!) couldn’t accomplish all we dreamed of.

“Except,” mom told my brother, “you’ll never play basketball in the NBA.” It was the one reality check she felt necessary to give her chubby, flat-footed, bow-legged preteen as he pressed his face to the television to worship at the altar of Barkley, Bird, Pippin, and Jordan. 

My mother has given me her unshakable love, support, and compassion, asking nothing in return, every day since the moment I was born. In return, I spent a lifetime uncertain I could live up to her standards as a mother. I hardly felt capable of reciprocating the love within our own relationship. 

For years, I had difficulty being held by her. She would cling to me for what felt like an eternity, her arms bound so tightly, an onlooker might have assumed it was a hostage situation. I was always first to recoil. During last goodbyes, before returning to college or flying back to New York City, she would bury her face into my shoulder and choke through her words as I mechanically patted her on the back and winced. “Mom, please don’t cry.”

On a deep exhale, she’d say, “I love you so much. Do you know that?” I assured her, I knew. But after a lifetime of serving as her source of happiness, I wanted complete autonomy, which feels like a selfish, unfair thing to ask of someone who has loved you so largely for so long.

On my wedding day, we read a quote by Rilke: “Once the realization is accepted that, even between the closest human beings, infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky.” I love this quote because I believe this to be true. But my mother doesn’t want to be whole; she only wants to live in a world in which my brother and I are a heavy part of her. “One day, when you have a child, you’ll understand.” 

I have been afraid to become a mother because I am afraid of loving anything that much. 

I left for New York City when I was 22, thinking I’d only stay a year or two. By year three, my mother began not-so-subtly requesting my return to the south. “Even if you were driving distance, I’d be happy,” she would say. 

By year seven, she still hadn’t given up. “I don’t understand why you pay all that money to live in a shoebox when you could live somewhere like here and have a whole house.” I’d sigh on the other end of the receiver, unsure how to explain the unexplainable: how and why a person chooses to live their life. Why they leave their hometown and their childhood behind. How, after a period of time, New York City changes your DNA. How it grips you by the ribs like hands hooked on bull horns, how it gets into your bloodstream, and how, even after you leave, it never truly lets go. But even now, years since I’ve left and still long for New York City, I don’t live within driving distance to my mother.

So I return to square one, wondering why we pour the contents of our lives into another person? A person who will break your heart repeatedly and unknowingly, who will someday leave you to get on with a life that you made possible. I realize, now, that motherhood is a wholly selfless act in which a mother is asked—and expected—to give her body, time, money, love, forgiveness, and energy in perpetuity. 

I used to have this daydream, back when I lived in Brooklyn in my late 20s/early 30s. It was a life in which I’ve given my mother everything she wants. In it, I live close to home. I have a baby, probably around eight months old. The daydream plays out like a film: my entire family all buzzing around the dinner table, the place we’d linger every Sunday after church. I’m standing over the table, baby affixed to my hip, passing a bowl. There’s a warm glow lighting the room, the clanking of silverware, my mother humming over her finishing touches. I look happy. Everyone is happy, especially mom. The daydream would come and go often, but each time I would remind myself: This is not my life. Maybe it never will be. I—and my mom—will have to be OK with it.

I am jolted out of my daydream by the shriek of metal on metal as the subway comes screeching to a halt or by the honking of horns as I cross the street. Back to reality, I step into a brightly lit train car and take my seat or I cross the intersection into Union Square or anywhere other than a home with a nursery and a baby.

PART 2

On April 5, 2020, two days before my mother’s birthday—and after a year of couple’s therapy and a move to Los Angeles—I told my mother I had an early present for her. Could you get dad, too? On FaceTime, I walked my parents into the bathroom and turned the camera toward a positive pregnancy test, the first time my mom had seen my pee on anything in over 30 years. I waited. “Happy Birthday, Sitti,” I said, calling her by her Lebanese grandma name. On the other side of the phone, she covered her mouth with her hands and scrunched her face. Her ugly cry face. I didn’t wince or plead with her not to cry. She deserved this moment. And maybe also an Oscar.

Being that my pregnancy coincided with Covid quarantine, it was a quiet time. After 11 years burning myself into the ground in New York City—working, drinking, writing, eating, drinking, never pausing for a breath—and two years in the Hudson Valley trying to keep my marriage from crumbling like a shortbread cookie, I was truly content. I felt I’d spent all my 37 years preparing for this pregnancy. I’d accepted that I was not like my mother, born for the role Mother, but all those questions asked, all that mediation on motherhood had paid off. I had no regrets. At the end of 2020, our daughter was born.

When describing the transition into motherhood, people often use phrases like, “cracked wide open,” and “heart exploded,” as if there was a singular moment that altered them forever. In the blink of an eye, they were someone new. The phrases themselves are aggressive and transformative in nature; they’re so hyperbolic, it’s hard to imagine their meaning if you have not experienced childbirth—or even if you have.

My transformation into motherhood came on like a slow-burning flame that caught wind over time. I spent those first several weeks and months in awe of our daughter, not feeling much beyond curiosity and exhaustion. I examined the way she stretched her tiny limbs and yawned with voraciousness much bigger than her body. I’d lay her, slack with exhaustion from navigating her new world, on my bare chest and press my lips to her head. I’d run my nose across her fuzzy hairs and inhale. I listened for her gentle exhale. 

Mom came to Los Angeles to help, offering to take the baby after her 6 a.m. feeding so my husband and I could snag two hours of uninterrupted sleep without a crying, farting newborn squirming two feet from our heads. In the afternoon, I’d pry my daughter from my mother’s hands, her not having moved from her station in the rocker.

“She needs to nap in the bassinet this time,” I’d say. “You can hold her for tomorrow morning’s nap.” Mom would grin and begrudgingly pass my daughter, swaddled like a burrito, into my weary hands.

About two weeks in, I was swaying my daughter back and forth in the kitchen during a coveted moment of calm when mom asked me, “Can you imagine your life without her?” She gazed intoxicatingly at my daughter. “Of course I can!” I said. “I was just living it a few weeks ago.” 

In the same way that my daughter’s limbs needed time to uncoil from a fetal position, I needed time to slip into my new role. As the weeks rolled on (and blurred together), I learned how to be her mother. I diapered and rocked and nursed and sang and cried as I expanded into my new identity. There from the changing table, or looking up after a nap on my chest, my daughter would stare into my eyes as though she already knew I was her home. Over weeks and months, the same way tectonic plates shift and the earth pulls apart to make a canyon, she cracked me wide open. “One day, when you have a child, you’ll understand.”

One morning while driving my daughter to daycare, I glance back in my rearview mirror as she paws at her feet, and realize I have never known fear until now. I’ve never understood the paralyzing horrors that lie on the other side of my imagination until I begin to entertain a life without her. What if suddenly becomes the two most horrifying words I’ve ever had the nightmare of knowing. My greatest fear has come true: I have never loved anything this much.

These days, my daughter is fascinated with babies. “Baybee” she says proudly, pointing a fat, intentional finger at each of the dolls she collected over Christmas. There is a book we sometimes read called I Loved You Before You Were Born: A Love Letter From Grandma, a book my mother gave her, written from the point of view of a grandmother imagining all the moments she anticipates with her grandchild.

“Even before you were born, I made a soft flannel blanket just for you,” one page reads. “I could picture your first birthday party, and I saw you eating birthday cake, pink and yellow frosting finger painted across your face,” reads another.

It’s so cheesy I want to barf.

I see why my mother likes it; it’s just her genre of sentimental mush. But my daughter is adamant that we look at the “baybee” in this book. In a soft voice, with my chin nestled into the side of my daughter’s head, I continue to read, “I imagined all these things about you, until one day your daddy called and said, ‘It’s time.’” 

“Beh-beh,” my daughter whispers in fascination as I turn each page, revealing a new illustration of a sleeping infant. “When it was my turn, I held you close and rocked you and whispered, ‘I am your grandma and I love you.’”

I felt a familiar, uncomfortable feeling. A swell of emotion rose up from my belly. I choked it back down. I would not cry at this sappy drivel. Then I remembered the way I choked up when my mother, just after burying her own mother, said to me, “It’s hard to lose the one who loved you first.”

I remembered how it hit me like a ton of bricks. I remembered each time I lay in bed as a child with the irrational fear of my parent’s death, and how I sobbed fat tears into my pillow. I thought about every FaceTime call I’d made since the spring of 2020, and the way my mother cheerfully answered as though this were the highlight of her day. Nearly 1,000 hours of calls in which I shared news of my pregnancy, of early motherhood, of every new, humdrum development in my daughter’s life, and how mom delighted in every sentence.

I was wrong when I said I’d never loved anything this much. 

A couple of tears rolled down my cheeks and onto my daughter’s fuzzy head. I turned to the final page. It was an image of a grandmother lovingly holding her sleeping grandchild, and I read aloud, “I loved you before you were born.”