It seems I am on my own as I explore the urgent questions precipitated by Ida’s sudden journey to a far away land. I know that I am only the latest in an endless line of mothers who have struggled with such love and fear for their children, but it seems that one can no more prepare another for this challenge than one can prepare another for the very act of birthing, nor of becoming a mother. For each of us it is all new.
And so, though the waters be well traveled, each mother must be the solo captain and crew of her own ship as it sails toward what she hopes is some distant land of deep knowing and peace. When I arrive, I hope to find a village of other mothers who were there watching and supporting me all along. I hope to find that this ragged heart is mended, is softer and stronger than I could have fathomed. I hope to have learned to love and receive love from across space and time—oceans, galaxies, and eternity.
* * *
I know that this chronicle of my passage through a place of incapacitating fear will speak to other mothers. Though I can’t claim to know the feeling of fatherhood from the inside, I think fathers too will recognize much here. But whether or not you are a parent, if you’ve ever watched your own parents suffer over you in the name of love and at the hand of self-made demons, you might from reading these words find new understanding of their struggle.
Mothers and fathers manifest their love in many forms, and at times of upheaval and growth such as this we see new aspects of our particular form. My way seems to be akin to throwing whole body and soul into the flames. I celebrate all the varieties of motherlove in you and your mother: calm or fiery, creative or consistent, subtle or extravagant, intense or gentle, graceful or halting. All of these ways are good and they are enough.
* * *
Two months ago I said to Daniel, “Here we are with 19 year old Ida, our youngest child, looking at ideas for what she might do this year, and some of what she chooses is sure to be away from home. I’m totally ready to support whatever she chooses. I’m not feeling any fear about our being left here alone either—there’s such a lot of activity flowing through our home, with bed and breakfast guests, neighbors, daughters coming and going, and other community events. I have so many projects I’m excited to take up. And, I don’t think that either Ida or Sophie will ever sever themselves from this place in a permanent way, so this nest will never feel empty.”
Two months ago, Ida was looking at her choice to not attend college this year and noticing that in our culture and class, travel is assumed to be the only other legitimate option for a capable young person who is not attending college. She was feeling rebellious toward that assumption and looking at how she might challenge even that norm.
Two months ago, Ida had not yet been presented with the opportunity to travel to Uganda and Kenya for three months with her godmother, friend, and midwife-teacher. Then everything changed.
One month ago, Ida was in the midst of deciding whether to accompany Brenda to Africa to work as an apprenticing midwife in two birth clinics: one in rural Northern Uganda, next to Uganda’s largest Internally Displaced Persons camp, and one in a slum of Nairobi, Kenya. It was not a simple decision for her, for she knew that there were many doubts and concerns in our family and community about her going to a part of the world that is so well known in recent years for indiscriminate violence and disease. I mostly kept silent, because I knew that Ida could read my mind anyway. I knew that she could tell I was all messed up inside—and even if she didn’t sense it, how could she miss all of my silent tears, and, when she came upon me by surprise, my swollen red eyes? I was searching for a healthy way to work through all of this fear, and I kept expecting to find it the next day, and then the next…
In my quest for a healthier, less fearful perspective, I talked with many people, both about East Africa and about my twisted up heart. I meditated, walked, prayed, and journaled. I re-read my journals from when I was 19 and traveling in Bolivia for five months alone, hitchhiking and staying with strangers. I courageously sought information that would prove my fears to be nothing more than media-induced American paranoia. I stood tall and tried to set a good example to her of a mother who was smart and careful but also free.
And when she wasn’t home I fell in a puddle on the floor, weeping. Daniel cuddled and rocked me. Through my tears I begged for guidance to move through this. I begged for wisdom to know whether my angst was a warning message that we should heed, or whether it was just fear of Other and the unknown. I begged for clarity about my role as a mother in this new realm—what kind of letting go was being asked of me? Is there really a time when a mother’s concerns are no longer appropriate or helpful? Why would Creation mess around like this with the bond between mother and child?
I have never told Ida ‘no’ to anything she wanted to do. Hard to believe even as I write it, but it’s true. I have always trusted her, and her vision has always proven to be clear. When she wanted to have spontaneous sleepovers. When she was 7 and wanted to go away to language camp for 2 weeks. When she was 13 and wanted to fly alone out to California after her aunt LiAnn died. When she was 15 and wanted to pierce her nose. When she was 16 and wanted to skip school for 2 weeks to attend a traditional skills gathering in the Southwest. When she called at the end of the gathering and said she was going to stay down there a little longer. When earlier this year she took off with some strangers (to me) to travel to Georgia for 3 weeks. Through all of this, she has proven herself capable and protected by some force of life that you may call whatever you like.
Now, for the first time ever, I really wanted to tell Ida ‘no.’ I looked and looked for the will to say that to her, but I did not know how.
-‘No,’ because I cannot ensure your safety there but of course I can here…?
-‘No,’ because you are a child of this place and there is no need to go leave half your heart in Africa...?
-‘No,’ because white people caused unspeakable horrors in Africa, and now our karma has borne an existential fear of ‘them’ that I haven’t yet worked through…?
-‘No,’ and I can promise you that someday you’ll understand and thank me…?
-‘No,’ and how about if you just send your airfare to the clinics as a donation… ?
-‘No,’ because it’s too hard on your poor mother’s heart…?
I have a lot of learning and growing still to come, but this I knew already in the midst of this decision-making crisis: none of those reasons was good enough.
The other side of that same coin is that Ida would not have been able to allow herself to go without my honest blessing. I knew that, she knew that, I knew she knew that, she knew I knew that—but we didn’t speak of it. Instead, even after she had decided to go, for many days—weeks!—she kept not buying her ticket. The itinerary was set, and all that was needed was to give the travel agent our credit card number. One day she was absolutely going to make the phone call to confirm and pay for the reservation, but she had also planned to drive to Cornell to visit friends. She was making food and gifts to bring to them and it was getting late. I told her that I really wanted her to get on the road so she could arrive before dark, and she said she would hurry out but could I then make that phone call for her? I agreed. But do you think I could do it? I tried, oh I tried! I picked up that phone so many times and willed myself to do it. I hung up, paced the floor, and tried again. I went for a walk, came back and tried again. Finally, I placed the call at exactly 5:01 and was told the computers were shut down. Of course.
Ida left many messages on our answering machine that night, calling from Cornell to ask if I’d bought the ticket. I had to call her and admit I had been incapable of doing it. She was quiet and disappointed, but spoke to me kindly. The ancient mother in her understands.
More days passed, and I watched helplessly as my stuck place bled right into her. She got quieter each day. She didn’t buy her ticket. Meanwhile, trying to be helpful in the lame but only way I could, I kept thinking up people she could call and ask for opinions and advice: Decorah kids who’ve traveled in Africa recently, someone who ran programs in a Nairobi slum similar to the one where she would be, mothers of distant friends who went to Africa. She went along with all of these assignments, for she too takes her safety very seriously. But time was running out and she was losing hope, I could see. I desperately did not want to stand in the way of her destiny, but by now I too was starting to loose hope that I could find the way out from under the toxic cloud that ruled my thoughts.
* * *
Ida and I have always been dear friends and caretakers of each other. We haven’t gone through some of the stuff that some mothers and teen daughters are dealt. I wondered now: did it all have to come to this? –that my love for Ida was of this certain sort that I couldn’t let her go out of my reach? –that we will end up not being friends after all, as she comes to realize that my love smothered her into staying here when her heart wanted to go?
Just when I could see a flicker of light, a sign that I might be able to find a way out, something would come along and smother it: for example, running into a friend at Luther who heard that Ida was considering going to Nairobi, who with a semi-horrified face reminded me that a Luther student was murdered in Nairobi just a few months ago. Or, finding out that the head of the clinic in Nairobi is currently unavailable for communication because he is tending to his brother who is dying after some mysterious accident. On and on I could go telling you these ‘signs’ that showed up, just when I was looking for them. Oh yes, I could make anything into a sign telling us that she should not go: the dropping of a glass in correlation with what I was thinking at the time of the drop; the finding of an old scarf in the woods, all rotted and tattered; the call not returned from a midwife who was leaving rural Kenya prematurely. “Stop!” I told myself, over and over. But I could not.
Then there was the noticing of the opinions, expressed or not, of friends, family, and strangers. At first I had hopes that I could gain some clarity by speaking with others, but eventually I realized that it was not fair to expect them to help me. I realized that I was unintentionally putting them in a position in which they had no choice but to support my fears and doubts, on the one hand, or my courage and hope, if on the other hand that’s what I presented to them. It’s not that they were being dishonest; they simply did not have enough information—not about the places, nor about the crazed condition of my heart.
The calendar pages were flipping fast and we were now long past the time when Ida should have bought her ticket. On one of these days I walked all the way from Luther to Java John’s with tears rolling down my eyes, no thoughts except that I was so very stuck that I didn’t even know how to even move through the day. When I arrived in the conversation room at Java John’s, friends Loyal and Mike were there working on their computers. I thought I could just sit next to them and work, but my silent tears turned into words and sobbing, and I poured out our story to them. As it turns out, they have both had daughters who traveled in Africa. Alone. Was this a comfort to me? No. Nothing was enough.
Ida visited one day with a Kenyan woman who is a student at Luther. This woman’s response to Ida’s safety concerns was to tell her own story: when she was preparing to come to the USA to study, everyone in her country told her, “Watch out! All the Americans have guns and carry them around. Don’t look anyone in the eye or you could be shot!” And so when she first arrived in Decorah and walked the streets, when people looked at her to say hello she looked away, afraid for her life. Now she knows that America is not all the same everywhere, and she knows first-hand more about fear and reality than we do.
We continued gathering stories like this, and I could see that it could go on for months, years even and I would still never have the Answer that I sought: would Ida be safe? And even as I demanded that answer, I knew that I had arrived at a place that all mothers visit, where the question hovers, both a challenge to greatness and a taunting of our ultimate powerlessness: “Can my will be strong enough to protect her?”
What if I pray enough, do enough good in the world, will that help? Yet how can I believe that those or any actions are good for anything, when I just look around to see all the harm that has come to the children of all the faithful mothers of the world? Do I dare consider the possibility of something terrible happening? Obviously, I can’t help considering that. Does my imagining things harm her security? Can I swim through these murky waters toward a place of trust? Is that trust naive? …and on and on.
Though I was practicing it every day, I truly wanted to stop playing the role of the tormented mama. I knew the kind I wanted to be: the mighty balance-mama, holding in one hand my caring and concern, and in the other my trust in the strength and wisdom of Ida and those around her. To live with these two open hands, trusting my children to make choices that are sustainable and trusting the world to treat them well—to embody that peace and see it in others—that’s the kind of mother I used to be, until now.
So you can see the place where it all stood still: I could not tell her ‘no,’ and I could not tell her ‘yes.’ And she could not make a move until I got my act together—either to bless her journey, or to openly prevent it. But how?
* * *
One day in the midst of it all, about three weeks after her first attempt to buy a plane ticket, I remembered Bill Humphrey, a Shamanic healer who lives in Viroqua. I had brought Ida to him last year when she was struggling so much with the choice she had made to attend 12th grade at the high school. After their 3-hour session ended she didn’t tell me many details, but she told me that the session with him was a very good thing to have done. And indeed, she seemed from that day to find what she needed to go forth.
I called Bill and cried into his answering machine. “I need help. I need help right away, Bill. Can you help me? I can come today, tomorrow, any day. I need help.” He called back and we made a plan for 3 days hence. Already, knowing that a plan was now in place, I felt a piece of hope rise in me. I couldn’t even articulate what I would ask Bill for, except help. A deep freeze had set in on me and I could find no sunshine that lasted long enough to melt anything. At least, not in time for Ida’s plans.
When I walked into Bill’s home, I saw him see me and take in the lost soul that I was. For two hours he sat and listened while I told him all the details, sobbing intermittently and crying the whole time. I told him the whole story. I told him about my desperate need to move one way or the other, so that Ida could move. I told him how ashamed I was that Ida’s process had become so dominated by me, how this whole story has become dominated by me. I told him about my fear that I was creating more danger for her though all my worrying. On and on…I don’t know what I expected of him, but he was the only idea I had left. So I told him everything, hoping something would fall out of my mouth that could help him help me. I gave him the whole bolt of cloth in the hope that he would find at least one little swatch that he could show back to me under a new and true light.
After those two or so hours of talking, we began a journey into the spirit world. Bill has learned with many teachers and then practiced for many years this ancient tradition of going on a spirit journey on behalf of others to see what the spirit world has to say about things happening in this world. Here’s my explanation of how it works: The journey of the shaman begins with prayers, invocations, blessings, song, rhythm, and other such sacred doings. While this is taking place, the one who came for help is simply lying on the floor, listening or sleeping or journeying herself. The Shaman sits nearby with a hand drum to enter into the other place. After drumming, the shaman comes back with a vision, a message from the spirit world, from Creator.
As we began the journey, Bill asked me to name my requests for Creator, silently or out loud. As I wept, I slowly named these requests:
~to show me whether this fear and dread that I’ve been dragging around is something to heed on Ida’s behalf, or whether it is a construct meant to teach me something else
~to bring all clarity to Ida
~to help me know, in the event that Ida does go to Africa, how to use all my power and the power of my community to encircle and protect her
~that my love never be a burden to Ida
~and that all the things I do not yet know how to ask about but which I need to understand also be answered.
The journey was long and tortuous for me, lying there with my heart wide open to the heavens. The drum sang on and an as I wept and wept, and my sorrow was so deep and mighty that at times I could hardly breathe. I began to know that my weeping was for something that included the unbearable pain of imagining harm coming to Ida, but was something else too. For heaven’s sake, why was I acting like a woman who had just lost her child? I was feeling a pain far, far beyond anything that I have ever known in this life. I was feeling something that was wrapped up with all of time and all of love. What was it? The minute the question formed in my mind, I knew the answer.
I opened my mouth to speak, and the words rose up from a place I don’t know. I heard myself saying: “I am feeling the pain of all of the mothers, now and before and in the future, who have lost a child! And every single one is too much to bear!” My heart was breaking, and it was wide open and raw, and there was no balm for such sadness. I had come to Bill to find clarity, and the pain was deepening. Though I couldn’t imagine my heart stretching any wider, somehow I knew that, just as in childbirth, I must stay there with this intense pain. There was nowhere to turn but ever toward the opening that I believed must be there, somewhere.
Eventually the drumming stopped and the journey was over, and then Bill did some gentle and powerful blowing into my crown and heart chakras. Then he left me there to rest and prepare to hear about to his vision. I lay in silence. He returned and asked me if I would like to hear what it was that he had seen. I said yes.
Bill had been taken to Africa – to Uganda and to Kenya. There he had seen Ida among many beautiful and kind people. There was yellow light surrounding her, a circle of joy and protection created by her relationships with whomever she befriended. Such joy and love, and everyone was beaming with gratitude. Everyone, including all men, all women, and all children were affected by the brilliant light.
Then he turned and looked behind Ida and saw me, all bent over and in pain, so close to Ida but unable to be in her light because my tears and fears were lurking over me. Those took the form of 5 cloaked figures hovering above my head, obscuring my vision and weighing me down.
Then he saw me turn to face the shadowy figures and confront them with all of my might, seeing them for the unformed illusions that they were. They shrank to the ground, leaving nothing but the shrouds that had once given them form. Then he saw me back in Iowa building a fire, and without drama placing those cloaked figures into the fire, transforming them into ashes for earth, light and warmth, and smoke rising into the sky. After the cloaked figures were gone, I stepped into the fire myself, and the flames of the fire lifted me higher and higher, above the planet earth into the heavens, like a rising star. I did not burn, but I went into labor. It was a long and hard labor, and two beings were born. They were not twins. One was Ida, a fully grown woman. The other was myself, rebirthed into a new part of my life. Then he saw Ida and me, happy in our own earthly homes and still connected.
Bill stopped talking. Silence.
I did not ask for more on any but one point. I had not presumed to bring this question to the table quite so bluntly, but his vision seemed to invite it. I asked, “Are you telling me that in your vision you saw that Ida would be safe, and you trust that vision enough that you are willing to watch me use it as the sign I needed to let her go?
“Yes.”
I couldn’t believe that he was willing to say this so confidently. I thought there must be a trick in there somewhere. Maybe he was only saying that she would be safe in the universe. That is not good enough—I need her to be safe in this world, now. “Are you saying, that not just spiritually, but physically she will be safe? She will not be harmed in any way while in Uganda or Kenya, or on the way there or back?”
“Yes.”
Still incredulous, I asked him how he dared make such a bold prediction. What if something happened to her? He would have to live with that forever! I heard an edge of accusation in my voice as I asked this.
“I know. It’s something I’ve come to learn to trust.”
“And how can you know that it wasn’t just your head making this vision for you? Because I think that you actually do think she should go, that it will be really great for her, etc. etc. How do you know that your thinking didn’t influence the outcome?”
Bill was patient and unthreatened by my questions. He explained that he had been practicing a long time. That in the beginning he didn’t always know which was which, but that over time he has come to feel confident in knowing the difference and confident that his visions are coming from Creator.
He waited for my next accusations and questions, but I was finished with those. I had just one more edgy thing to say: “You know, I was doing just fine before all of this. I have always been on a steady path, growing with an open mind and heart. It’s not like I needed this. I could have become a perfectly fine old sage-woman someday without this particular challenge. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t believe that growing only comes from big scary dramatic events. I didn’t ask for this, you know.”
I don’t know what to think of that big ol’ statement now. Ask me in a year, and again in 10. Ask me once I actually get to be an old sage woman.
And I had one more thing to blurt out at him. Maybe some part of me was like a dying animal, kicking and struggling with whatever it had left. I demanded, “What was wrong with families and communities of the past, when the kids grew up and moved next door to start their adult lives? That seems pretty darned healthy and sustainable to me. Why does our culture expect kids to go away? And why, with our family rich in love, land, and community, does this have to happen to us?
When I was finished with these rants, Bill sat quietly for a while and then asked me, “Do you think you can give Ida your blessing to go?”
Of course I knew already that the answer had to be yes. The ‘yes’ that I couldn’t utter even inside myself before, let alone out loud, was rising up in me now. I knew it was coming, that I couldn’t stop it. I knew that I had invited it by refusing to give in to my fears, by questioning them each time they arose, and finally by coming to Bill with an open heart. I knew now why I had come—that somehow I knew I just needed help in saying ‘yes.’ I knew that the other mothers were all watching me as I passed through this, yet another place of blessing to which our beloved children take us. I reached for the faith of a child, for there was nothing else left but for me to say ‘yes.’
* * *
I drove back West to Decorah in the evening sun, with golden rays touching everything. The weeping willows, the rolling hills, haybales and woodlands all changed color as the sun set. I drove in silence and found myself planning things to do for Ida before she left and while she was gone. I found that the creepy and horrible images that have been haunting my every hour had much less power over me now. Much, much less power.
I returned home to Ida and Daniel, who eagerly asked me how it had gone. “Really, really well,” I replied – but I wasn’t ready to say more. Ida’s face lit up, and I knew that she was joyous to see that I was no longer suffering, but she didn’t ask any more questions. She would let me talk when I was ready.
We slept together that night, and in the morning I snuggled up to her and whispered my blessing for her journey. Just like this: “Ida, I give you my blessing for your journey.” There they were, those simple words. I had gone into the mouth of the monster of fear and come out with the precious pearl I sought—an authentic blessing, wrapped with hope and love, a hidden treasure for which I had no map but knew must exist for me because it had for so many mothers before me.
Ida thanked me and we cried. That day, she bought her ticket.
I can imagine some people thinking I’m crazy to put my faith in the safety of my daughter in the spirit-journey of a guy named Bill from Viroqua. My purpose is not to convince anyone of the validity of a shaman, or of the necessity of any particular pathway out of such a lost and lonely place as I found myself. I know you can see that something was absolutely needed, something that I could not do alone. It could have been a pastor or therapist or healer or the song of the coyote pack. To each their own, and may they be well-served.
* * *
And so we flung ourselves all the way into preparations, with 2 weeks until liftoff. Registering with the embassy. Gathering phone numbers and contacts. Getting immunizations. Finding luggage. Writing song lists. Buying travelers’ insurance. Buying and making snack bars, for she had been advised she might need some extra food. Buying clothes and fabric for sewing projects with the women there. We went to Goodwill to buy some summer skirts and shirts, and when she couldn’t decide between two items, I shocked her when I said I’d buy them both! Buying insect repellant and Malaria pills, underwear and socks, and a headlamp, and a camera, and so, so many more things. It was astounding how easy it was for me, usually so frugal and rarely buying things new, to run to the store for anything that might be needed. It embarrassed Ida, who’s so accustomed to our other ways. Up in the Twin Cities for Thanksgiving, we even shopped Black Friday—and on top of that, went online and bought something on Cyber Monday! What had we come to?
I can’t explain it in any better way than to say: each week I exhibited a new and surprising way of being crazed, and this was the way of one week. It was the only thing I could think to do for her—to use my financial privilege to try to ensure her safety and wellbeing. The wanton spending of this money was an odd but effective sort of therapy for the moment. I was completely cognizant of the injustice and irony—preparing her to travel and serve people who have so little, doing fundraisers to benefit the very needy birth clinics, and then spending thousands of our dollars for the protection and comfort of this one person. Because we could.
The night before she left, I went alone to the woods and built a fire. In my hand I held 5 small cloth bundles of herbs, representations of the cloaked figures in Bill’s journey. After sitting there for a while and thinking about what those cloaked beings represented and how it was time for them to be gone, I placed them one-by-one in the fire:
the fear of her death.
the fear of her being physically harmed by any other person or circumstance.
the fear of her becoming ill.
the fear her pain from new awareness of the injustice of the world.
the fear of her changing relationship with the home and community that she loves.
That night I gave them all to the sacred fire of transformation, and I bid them farewell. I looked squarely at their repression of my good energy and I choose to release them. I felt the gratitude of the land, plants, and skies as I made this choice. Walking home from the fire, I felt lightness and joy for Ida. I have renewed this releasing many nights since then, only without the fire and bundles. Such things take time and practice, but I was glad to be beginning at last.
* * *
One week ago we brought her to the airport to meet Brenda for the journey. The five days before that had been filled with not only preparation but also ritual and song. There’s one that I’ll describe here.
I have a favorite and very old cotton scarf, by far the textile most dear to our family. It’s kind of like the velveteen rabbit—it has become real over these last 30 years from being present during so much of our lives. It’s been lost a few times and has come back. It has adorned my head and neck as well as those of Sophie, Ida, and even Daniel. It has covered tables during rituals. It always goes camping with us. Now I wanted to send it along with Ida, to give her comfort and strength through the smells and feels of home.
I knew that I would do this and of course it wasn’t at all hard for me to part with it for such a purpose, but I had another idea too: to cut it in half, send half with her and keep the other half always near me. Yes I believe in many kinds of magic and the power of this symbol seemed very good. Yet, every time I sat down and smoothed out the cloth and held up the scissors to begin the cut, I couldn’t do it. For one thing, I wasn’t sure that Ida would like to see the scarf cut, and also I wanted to be sure that there would be a way for her to know that I would have gladly sent the whole thing along with her too, but loved the powerful symbolism of the one becoming two yet staying as one. My idea for the presentation of her half didn’t have room in it for such explanations or apologies, so if I cut it I’d have to make do without them and trust that she understood.
It wasn’t until we were at the airport that I was finally able to do it. Still it took a lot of overcoming: I went to a corner far from her sight, smoothed out the scarf on the airport floor and held up the scissors to cut—but then gathered up the cloth and stood looking around, only to go to another spot just across the floor and do it all again. Strangers seated in nearby chairs watched me warily with my long scissors poised in the air, surely looking half-crazy with all of my emotions. But finally I took the first cut. The scissors were fine and sharp, and the cut was clean. As I worked, I knew that this was indeed the perfect symbol for us now—I, her mother, bravely tearing myself away from what would seem to be most natural and right: an intact scarf, and a daughter who I can continue to love, in person, every day. But sometimes, for some reasons that are simply unclear and others that are utterly unjust, things don’t proceed in that natural-seeming way. Sometimes the cloth is separated. We can only hope that the fibers, grown so close over years of living together, are in the end cosmically inseparable. We can only believe that they will stay close even though far apart, and that soon they will be joined again in this world. I am so ready for that rejoining that my heart can hardly bear the waiting.
Here’s another story from the airport. Brenda’s Kenyan husband Mwaura and his 13-year-old daughter Jennifer brought her to the airport, and both our family and hers were there together for an hour or so. Mwaura and Jennifer emigrated here 9 years ago and travel back and forth between the continents often. To watch them witnessing us making such a big fuss over this 3-month trip, their faces curious and gently amused, gave me perspective that was interesting and only slightly embarrassing!
We left Ida and Brenda there at the airport as they entered three hours of security checks. As I watched her walk out of sight, for a moment my fears and torment were completely forgotten as I beheld the peace and power that she carries with her. I thought again about the courage it took for her to leave the place and people she so loves. For a moment, I disappeared to myself, and it was good.
Leaving the airport, I thought of more songs I wished I’d sung for her and of important songs I might have forgotten to put on the song lists she asked me to create for her (I made ten!). I thought of easy run-around games I could have reminded her of, to offer to the children.—and this!—and that!—Wow. I amused even myself. What does it take for a mother to let go?
* * *
We’re home again back in Decorah, and Ida and Brenda have been gone for 2 weeks. Most surfaces of our house hold one or two resources on Africa that I’ve already read or watched: Half the Sky—Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholoas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn; 2 novels set in Uganda; the 10-hour National Geographic film “Africa,” along with the accompanying book; Kisses from Katie, the autobiography of a 22-year old from Tennessee who moved to Uganda when she was 18 and adopted 14 children; the film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” about the women’s peace movement in Liberia; and the film “Throw Down Your Heart,” about the musical journey made to Africa by American banjo player Bela Fleck. I’ve made donations to non-profits that are helping women in East Africa. I listen to podcasts on all things Africa, past and present. As I read the words in the books, my mouth shapes the sounds of the words of Uganda:
Cheetah. Hyena. Caracal. Genet. Wildebeest. Civet. Topi. Mongoose. Kudu. Gazelle.
The Bantu. The Nilotic. The Banyoro. The Baganda. The Ankole. The Acholi.
Kampala. Gulu. Atiak. Jinja. Mbale. Entebbe. The Nile. Lake Victoria.
Kabake Mwanga II. Sir Andrew Cohen. Milton Obote. Idi Amin. Yoweri Museveni.
Alice Lakwena, Holy Spirit Movement. Joseph Kony, Lord’s Resistance Army.
I fall asleep reading about these things, and I wake up to begin again. This is what I do now. And this is how it always works, isn’t it? There is so very much to learn and care about in the world, and we can only take in and offer care to a few things at a time. We do what is given us to do.
I’m pretty decent at mental math, having been to school before calculators and computers, but for some silly reason 9s have always been my Achilles Heel. Now, with Uganda 9 hours ahead of us, I’ve become really fast at adding 9s and transposing military time into standard time. It’s 6am here? Add 9 hours, = 15:00, = 3:00. Our children can inspire us to rise to challenges both sacred and mundane!
For the first many days I kept wondering crazy things: Did I send enough food with her? Do I love her too much? If I send more money to charities can it help with her cosmic protection? If I pick up this new volunteer job, will it be good for our family’s karma? So you see, I am not all grown-up yet. But I have grown up a lot in this last month, if by nothing else then by sheer endurance of my own crazy mother-mind.
Do you believe in fate? I’m not sure whether I do or not. I think there are lots of choices that we truly have, which have a very real effect on our future. But nowadays I find myself looking at this trip as though it were fated for Ida. 25 years ago I met Therese, who came to be Sophie and Ida’s midwife, and as a result Sophie was Decorah’s first homebirth of the new era. I met Brenda 23 years ago, when I was pregnant with Sophie and she with Jazmon, and as a result of her learning about homebirth midwives she became a midwife herself. When Ida was born we chose Brenda as Ida’s Godmother, and the two of them have been close friends all along. When Ida realized at age 9 that she wanted to become a midwife, Brenda began inviting her to births whenever she was able. Five years ago Brenda married Mwaura from Kenya and has dreamed ever since of offering her midwifery skills in East Africa. When Ida decided not to go to college this year, she also decided to take the risk of making no particular plans, so that she could be free to consider whatever came up.
Each can decide for themselves whether this journey was fated. All I can tell you is, there was a heck of a lot of power behind it, to have been able to get past me.
At our neighborhood goodbye ritual for Brenda and Ida, when it was my turn to speak I told a love story about my Dad and me. My best fan Frankie, aka ‘Dadda,’ has always been a great inspiration and playmate. When I was 28 and pregnant with Sophie, I bemoaned the impending change in my relationship with Dad – for how could I be his little girl anymore once I was a mother myself? How would it all change between us? What would be left of our playful and lighthearted ways together? Secretly, among other things, I feared that my child would take my place in Dadda’s heart. When I was 7 months pregnant I invited him down to Decorah for our last long day together alone. We went around the county eating and playing, and he taught me a new song that our family sings to this day. “What a day, what a day, what a beautiful day, tra la la…”
After Sophie was born a lot did indeed change, but of course it was all good. So good! Now we got to have Sophie with us too! There was no feeling of loss between Dadda and me. There was no need to worry about whether he had enough love and where it all went. Seeing his mutual love with Sophie was not any different from feeling it myself! Was it better than before? Was it not as good as before?—Silly questions! It was perfect love, manifest in yet more expanding ways. It was just right. It was yet more for which to be to be grateful. It was as the world should be.
In the context of the ritual for saying farewell to Ida after all that we’d been through this last month, this story ended up being way more relevant and powerful than I’d expected. It was healing to remember once again that sometimes even the loss of precious things can bring great gifts. Perhaps I could trust that my daughter Ida was gestating something beautiful, and that its birth would be a blessing to our family and community, because here too there is enough love to go around.
* * *
Why am I writing all of this down? Do I think that by reading it someone can be spared such a deep, painful, and time-consuming process when their own child chooses or is forced to do something that could be dangerous? No. I imagine that some form of this personal journey is demanded of each of us, sometime or another. If anything, perhaps because of having read this account you will not be surprised by whatever demanding form your own growing requires.
This is the only way that I know to be a mother: to call each twist and turn necessary, and accept each of my responses as the best I had at the time. This time around I am absolutely certain that I gave it my best, for I gave so much to this reweaving of my love-blanket for Ida that for a time I thought I had nothing left. Yet there she is, and here I am, and all is well. The bowl is filled again.
I rejoice knowing that my love, so mighty and so perfectly itself, never again to be repeated, is in fact at all times multiplied around the world, among billions of parents and children. I pray for us all.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Meeting of midwives at Earth Birth Uganda, where Ida and Brenda are currently.
God is a River
a song by Peter Mayer*
In the ever-shifting waters of the river of this life
I was swimming, seeking comfort, I was wrestling waves to find
a boulder I could cling to, a stone to hold me fast
where I’d let the fretful waters of this river ‘round me pass
And so I found an anchor, a blessed resting place
A trusty rock I called my savoir, for there I would be safe
From the river and its dangers, and I proclaimed my rock divine
And I prayed to it ‘protect me’ and the rock replied:
God is a river, not just a stone
God is a wild, raging rapids
And a slow, meandering flow
God is a deep and narrow passage
And a peaceful, sandy shore
God is a river, swimmer,
So let go
Still I clung to my rock tightly with conviction in my arms
Never looking at the stream to keep my mind from thoughts of harm
But the river kept on coming, kept on tugging at my legs
Till at last my fingers faltered, and I was swept away
So I’m going with the flow now, these relentless twists and bends
Acclimating to the motion, and a sense of being led
And this river’s like my body now, it carries me along
Through the ever-changing scenes and by the rocks that sing this song
God is a river, not just a stone
God is a wild, raging rapids
And a slow, meandering flow
God is a deep and narrow passage
And a peaceful, sandy shore
God is a river, swimmer,
So let go
God is the river, swimmer
So let go
* If you'd like to hear this beautiful song, visit www.petermayer.net
or check the itunes store.
Bill Humphrey can be reached here.
