the end

maybe it is this that ties us all to ourselves, to the notion of motherhood, even when we insist that this isn't all that our lives are about. because there is no broken heart like a lost child.

because the relationship you build there isn't a conscious decision, not a matter of choosing this or that person. it's not a question of who's more deserving of your love. it's just a matter of chance and fate. which seems easy, yes i imagine, to women who ride with the wind and run away with wolves. but.

to bear a child is to be pushed and shoved into a vulnerable emotional place, that begins the moment your body changes, the moment you miss your period, the moment you gain the first couple of pounds. your hormones become the convenient excuse for everything. but really, the everything's in your head.

and your heart. because it takes heart to go through nine months of uncertainty -- which is what pregnancy always is. and then another day, or two, for delivery. another week or so to recover. and as you do so, you realize you are tied to the life of another being, and there really is nowhere to go. even if you wanted to, even if you could. you wouldn't. because you're made of things that tell you to stay. to savor. to stay.

and when that child is gone, you're also told that you're made of stronger things. that you might wallow, but what for. that you do feel horrible and miserable, but you must get back to your life, the one you had before the full year of motherhood -- from pregnancy to the end.

the end. is where you realize that your heart will never recover. that a piece of it is lost forever. and that this is the only broken heart that's real and true. there are no replacements, no moving on, no getting up from the fall.