Weight

2024. This will be the first year since 1996 that Jonah will not be physically in my life. I have lived more years with him beside me than without, and now the clock starts over. The counting of the years starts again. And it’s painful. Painful to think of it as counting the days since I last saw him. Last kissed his forehead. Last felt his bear hug. Last caught the glimmer in his wry expression. Last heard his laughter ring out.

Last. All the lasts. 

There are just too many and they keep rising from my memory and confronting me with the truth they were, in fact, the last. Each one a dagger. Each one a diamond. Each one, now a beautiful wound.

The truth about being a mother is that from the moment you attune to that flicker of spirit inside you,

you carry these children on your shoulders as welcome weight. Grateful to carry the burden of a new life, the purpose of nurturing a legacy, a home for your whole heart to nourish. 

The first days, the lift is exhausting. There is a toll on your body as they grow inside you and a toll on your mind as you worry about their safe delivery and all the unknowns of your new life. Then born, everyday is changeable. 

Hungry cries. 

Surprise fevers. 

Ear infections. 

Sleepless nights. 

Everyday, you lift this burden and do your best, but it takes a while to learn. You figure out the routines

that work and the right pacifier. The smiles come and the giggling starts. You forge this connection together on the changing table and in the rocking chair. Your heart catches fire and changes you into a tiger; a mama bear with a ferocity of love that catches even you off guard. The weight becomes your treasure. What once sat on your shoulders is now the engine at the heart of all things that animates and ignites your life. 

You are now a mother. You are not the same. 

After 25 years, I had forgotten the weight was even there. It was just part of me. My breath. My heartbeat.

I didn’t even think of it as weight anymore. I only saw it as love. And then he died and then this terrible lightening happened. The weight was lifted. He was home. I no longer had to carry him. I had brought him all the way home and now he was safe. No more worry or fear or longing on his behalf. It was done. It was a horrible relief that I never wanted. I didn’t want to relinquish the beautiful burden, but it had been taken up. 

I remember sitting on the couch in our living room the day after, stunned and shocked. That is when I felt it. Instinctually, I went to touch the heart shaped stone in my body I had carried with such care for so long, and it was gone. The place in my body where it lived felt peaceful and hollow. It was gone. My work was devastatingly done. 

It is a strange thing to feel an intense sense accomplishment and loss of purpose in the same instant. I was at once grateful for the chance to be his mother, proud of the journey, and utterly and unexpectedly empty handed, standing in the rubble unsure which direction to go or how to make sense of what happened. 

I think this will be the part in the grief journey where I will lose people. While I have finally started to put one foot in front of the other, I am still mostly in rubble. Some of you are probably miles away, looking over your shoulder to see if I am coming along like you hope. But I am not. Not really. Even those who loved him so much and who truly grieve for him may not be able to stand next to me and watch it. I understand. We have to move on so healing can happen, but I just won’t move as fast as you. Just living a normal day takes more effort than you can understand. I am going to miss Jonah everyday of my whole life and I don’t think the intensity of that will change. I am unwillingly learning how to pick up this new, unwanted weight. Shouldering a new burden that is so, so much heavier, and once again, it will take me a while to learn.