Motherhood

(UPDATE: Many of you might have noticed some very long load times for our site…longer than a site should take. This is due to our server, which has caused a lot of problems over the last few months. We’ll be switching servers in the next couple weeks. We’re hoping to also institute a few extra changes, but those remain to be seen. Thanks for reading! Here’s Penny…)

Readers,

Seven weeks ago I met my daughter for the first time; all eight pounds eight ounces of incredible cuteness. My first thought upon looking at my brand-new baby was, “Oh my gosh, she looks just like Dave’s Dad,” which is an unfortunate thought when you’ve just given birth to a girl. My husband was quick to point out, though, that it wasn’t necessarily that Quinn looked like her grandpa, but that her grandpa was starting to look like a baby – bald, gentle, soft around the edges.

Babies naturally bring comparisons and surprises. Everyone has an opinion on whose eyes she has, whose nose. And more often than not they’re at odds. Go figure. There’s the surprise of being perfectly content just staring at her, even if it’s the middle of the night. Her perfect fingers, perfect toes, and soft, soft skin. Babies also bring out the best in people. They give us a fresh perspective, remind us to have hope, excite us with all that is possible. My family and friends gathered around me in a way I’ve never experienced, and probably never will again.

But having a baby is also scary, and it’s easy to focus on the bad stuff. There’s the fear of hitting their soft spot, SIDS, autism, and the ubiquitous cliche about the reasons not have children: “I couldn’t bring a baby into this messed-up world!” It’s hard to say this looking into Quinn’s sweet face, but then again, it’s hard not to think this after recent weeks.

Though I know it happens to people every day, I cannot begin to imagine losing my child. I understand this in a new way now, and my heart goes out to the mothers and fathers who lost loved ones at Virginia Tech. But something else about the massacre at VT pulls at me, and deserves recognition. You may not have heard, but Cho was considered to be schizophrenic.

This comes as no surprise to me. And though it explains a lot, it makes the situation no less tragic. Paranoid schizophrenia is the illness that sent my mother to the streets eleven years ago, and the same one that could take me, and my daughter, captive. Because my mother is paranoid schizophrenic we are much more likely to develop the illness than others.

It is incredibly frightening that I can’t control the possibility of my daughter developing this wretched illness any more than Cho’s parents could, any more than millions of parents can. But still, we are ashamed by this thing we cannot control. Yes, the crazy one over there, with food on her face, the one who is saying words that no lady should say, yes, she is my mother. Yes.

I fear divulging my mother’s condition for fear that people will feel awkward and won’t know what to say. But when something like VT happens, I feel compelled. The reality is there are millions of people suffering from this illness (2.2 million in the US, 51 million worldwide), and we should be talking about it more. So, here I am, promoting an article that was written about the VT massacre and the perpetrator’s mental illness. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read it in order to gain a different perspective on the shooting, and an illness that plagues so many families.

Though it’s incredibly important, I can’t end on that note, because there is so much to be thankful for, so much that is beautiful and good. I can control very little about what happens to my daughter, but I don’t have to let it keep me up at night. I cannot let the possibility of future pain stop me from experiencing the joy that’s in front of me right now. Though there is tragedy in this world every day, there is also new life, and beauty, and acts of courage and selflessness in the face of violence and fear. I just have to let myself see them.

She smiled at me for the first time last week. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her tomorrow, or next year, or in the next twenty years…but today, she smiled, and that’s enough beauty to sustain me for another day.

Yours humbly,
Penny Carothers