The Three Best Gifts You Can Give Mom This Mother's Day

Let's face it, Mother's Day is a complicated holiday. And mother-child relationships are probably the most complex and intimate relationships on the planet. Mothering has become such an exulted profession that it's hard for many of us to acknowledge or feel the many, often conflicting truths, of that relationship. 

For example, I have a friend who lost her 93 year old mother only six weeks ago. She and her sister had a tight relationship with their mother, who weathered partner abuse when the girls were young and endured despite it. My girlfriend has been overwhelmed by grief for the loss of her mother in recent weeks. Today she will stay home and avoid Facebook and social media, waiting for this day to end when her heartache won't be so visible.

Another friend has four daughters who barely speak to her anymore. They took the father's side in a divorce, and constantly criticize, belittle and disrespect their mother when they are around her. The abuse she took from her ex-husband now comes at her through her daughters. She will also be staying inside with the shades drawn today, waiting for tomorrow, when she can get back to work and not dwell on her loss.

Still another friend is childless, who had multiple miscarriages and one abortion many years ago. Although she is single, she still deeply desires the blessing of children, yet remains childless. Her feelings today more complicated than I can imagine.

And then there is the mother who works three jobs to support her family, or the one that had the baby of an unexpected pregnancy who can't find a job that pays enough for her to cover day care, or the mom who's husband trips over his own feet as he leaves the local bar but makes it home only to slap her around while the children pretend to sleep - the mothers who endure just to survive. 

I'm sure if you chatted with your friends, you might come up with a dozens of other examples of why this day is fraught with angst for so many women.

This "holiday" in American culture has become a capitalist perversion of what it was intended to be when it was first thought of back in 1905. It wasn't long (less than 20 years later) before even the founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis, tried to have it rescinded due to the commercialized tone it had taken. 

Glorifying all mothers, a superficial acknowledgement to women, and commercializing motherhood does not make the world a better place. Only a more confused one.

I've thought about this a lot over the years. Although we are now in a state of equilibrium, my relationship with my own mother has been tumultuous at times. And as to my own parenting? Ugh. Even when I thought I was doing my best, I had a partner who was still able to sexually abuse our daughter. There are experiences that haunt us for the rest of our lives.

So this mother's day, I'm not sending flowers, buying gifts or wishing strangers I see in my daily walks a Happy Mother's Day. It's hard to take this different path. Everyone's experiences are far too different, incredibly personal and belong to them. I don't wish to do more harm, although I worry that I still might. 

Ideas for women or mothers in your life that go a little deeper than flowers and gifts, especially during this pandemic? How about:

• A phone call to check in. Ask them how they are doing, what they need, if they would like to talk. Let them know they're not alone. Practice the art of listening well. 
• If you're close to a friend who is feeling loss, providing a meal or other sort of nourishment is helpful. In particularly profound times of grief, managing to get clothes on is a challenge; fixing a nutritious meal is a luxury. 
• Show up to vote! Vote for women and mom friendly candidates and policies. Write letters to your representatives to let them know where you stand, why taking care of mothers is important. 

Listen. Nourish. Support with your vote. These are the best gifts I can give to myself and the mothers in my life in 2020. 

Namaste. 

Would I Do It Again?

They say hindsight is 20/20, right? So I recently got to wondering, if I had to do everything over again in my life, including having an abortion, would I? 

I used to think I would not. I used to think that hindsight informed me that it was too painful, too traumatic, and impossible to get over to ever do again.

I used to think that way… until I didn’t. 

One day, a few years ago, after I’d already had three children, was separated from my husband, and very much in overwhelm being a single parent, I thought I might be (gasp) pregnant.

I had been seeing a kind and gentle man who loved both me and my kids. My divorce attorney had told me to wait to start dating as I was just stirring the pot of anger with my ex by getting involved with someone before my divorce was final. After putting this wonderful man him off from having sex for a good six months, I finally agreed to go away for the weekend with him. We used birth control, specifically condoms, that weekend so it couldn’t have been any safer, right? Besides, I was due to get my period within days so by my calculations everything would be okay.

It would have seemed that way, but I didn’t get my period for three weeks. And they were the longest three weeks of my life. 

 

I had already started my healing journey with Project Rachel and thought I had processed everything there was to process about my decision to abort. I knew after living the Project Rachel weekend that I would never have another abortion. 

And then suddenly there I was, in my mid-forties, separated and not yet divorced, exhausted from juggling work, single parenting, and the stress of the legal proceedings (my divorce), only to find myself wondering if I really could handle having another child.

How would my body handle this? Would I be able to take care of a baby and the three kids I already had and not lose my job? The man I was seeing had his own complications with family at home so the choice of having or not having another child was mine to make.

“Good God” I thought. “Maybe I will have to make this choice again!”

For three weeks, I pondered this question and more. I lost weight, sleep, and any sense of who I thought I was. My companion was concerned, of course, but agreeable to whatever I decided. Death seemed a preferable option, but my kids' needs removed that thought from my mind. “Dear Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Why can everyone else in the world have sex and not get pregnant while I, ever so cautiously, put one foot in the sexual pool and bam! – I get pregnant? Why me?”

Just when I thought I couldn’t get out of bed another day, I FINALLY got my period. Sweet, sweet relief flooded my body!

So would I have gotten an abortion again if I had been pregnant?


You can’t tell from looking at me now, but at the time my friends thought I had an eating disorder as I had lost so much weight from all the legal shenanigans. I was only getting about six hours of sleep a night on a good night as it was, and my three children were needy, especially since they were dealing with the separation from their father. I could see no other way out but to seriously consider choosing to have another abortion.

Luckily, I did not have to make that choice, but I can remember those three weeks like they happened just yesterday. Would I choose to have an abortion again after the excruciating pain, mentally, physically and emotionally of the first one? Despite everything I knew and experienced already, I have to say - Yes, yes I would.

It’s easy to be philosophical about abortion… until you are in the shoes of someone facing this decision. It’s all theory until it’s happening to YOU!


Today, I am in a much better place with abortion – personally and generally speaking. It is something women have been doing for over 4000 years. Isn’t it time we are able to embrace our sexual essence and inner wisdom and listen to our own knowing?

Because in the end, everything will be okay IF you deem it to be so.


Namaste.

In the Blink of an Eye

Seventeen years ago, I held my three week old baby daughter in my arms, totally and completely in love with her. Born at the end of January, I was still deep in the honeymoon phase through the month of February. I could never have imagined anyone so tiny could take my breath away the way this seven and a half pound little girl did. With her silky smooth head, sparkling blue eyes and loving spirit, I was forever smitten. 

Today, February 18, 2014, those seventeen years feel like they’ve passed in the blink of an eye as I kiss her good-bye at the airport. That beautiful head lying on my shoulder this morning as we drove to catch her flight is no longer baby soft and balding, but is now thick and full of dark shoulder length wavy hair. Her once blue eyes turned a deep brown shortly after her first birthday and now water gently with my own as we embrace at the security gate. Her loving spirit, now stronger and more confident with the passage of time, continues to captivate me. 

She is off on her first big adventure today, traveling overseas to live and go to school on a kibbutz in Israel for two and a half months. Her Israeli “brother”, Gilad, is well-known to her, having lived with us for three months this past fall. Her Israeli mom and dad feel almost familiar to us after our regular Skyping sessions these past six months.

When her host family and I spoke shortly after their son arrived to stay with us last fall, they told me they believed Gilad’s soul chose our family, in the same way an unborn soul chooses their birth parents and siblings. And as his soul chose us, we acknowledged my daughter’s soul also chose them. It was an affirming thought for me, and as I sent my own daughter off to their open arms now, I imagine it was a comforting thought for them as well. 

I am learning that the village helping me raise my children is not just a local, but a global and spiritual one as well. I sent her host family a brief text message this morning to let them know she was on board her plane. Immediately her host mom called me, asking me how we both were, knowing firsthand both the excitement and sadness I was feeling having stood in my shoes only six months earlier as she said goodbye to her son. What a relief it was to talk to her, my daughter’s other mother, halfway across the world, and know how they were eagerly waiting for her arrival – all of her, body and soul! 

As she boarded her plane and I sat outside of security waiting until she was safely in the air, it occurred to me how there is so much more going on between us than we could ever imagine. I thought about my first pregnancy and my first daughter, Mary, as I left the airport. I thought about how Mary released me, her soul allowing mine to choose what was best for me, knowing that in the end, things would all work out. I imagine she knew that I needed more time to be ready to have a child. And I imagine she knew that this day would someday arrive, this moment where I now release my first born daughter into the world and in some strange way, it would all make sense.

In the ebb and flow of the circle of life and the bitter sweetness that comes with change, everything feels exactly as it should be. My life – abortion, miscarriage, divorce – it all makes sense to me in this one moment. Everything before has brought me here, to this place of feeling one with the Universe. Right now, in this space, with a tearful good-bye to a confident young woman still ringing in my ears, it all remains quiet and perfect within my soul. 

Namaste.

 

Starting a Domino Effect

As difficult a decision as it was to have an abortion when I was 29 years old, an even harder decision was to choose to divorce. Because of my deep Catholic roots and truly believing that, like everyone else in my family, I would stay married “until death do us part,” I never imagined myself in a position to make that choice.

It is just over four years since my divorce has been complete, and I only recently realized a key reason I was in denial about needing a divorce for many years. My husband was the father of the baby that I aborted. Although the abortion was something we were not able to talk about, divorcing meant that I would lose my connection to only other person involved in that hard choice. 

My ex-husband and I did not talk about the abortion after the conversation we had in the hospital the day I found out I was pregnant. (http://christinaehaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/who-really-has-abortions_21.html ). We did not talk about it the day we drove to the clinic, and we didn’t talk about it when we left. It wasn’t until we decided the time was right to start a family four years later that the subject came up, and then, only briefly. 

It wasn’t easy to get pregnant when I finally did choose to! We had a difficult time conceiving – imagine that after getting pregnant while using birth control! I wondered if the abortion had anything to do with our difficulty. After a quick conversation and a bit of research, we determined that was not possible. A few months later I became pregnant and so began another period of suppression. 

Despite our lack of emotional connection on the subject of the abortion, because of our bond in other ways as husband and wife, cutting those cords through divorce brought a finality and deeper feelings of isolation about that experience. 

It was only in watching a friend go through a similar process last year that I was finally able to see for myself how this was true for me. Sharing our stories in safe spaces with those we trust and love helps us to see the resonance of experience for ourselves. It can be hard to see beyond the branches of the trees in our own world, but as we look at the trees and even the forest of the world of those we connect with, our scope of vision expands. As I looked at the forest of my own beautiful friend’s sadness, I saw for the first time a large part of my own.

Healing from abortion truly is like peeling the layers of an onion. There are so many layers of experience to our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies. As we work through the healing process, and especially when we do the work together, we bring healing not only to ourselves, but to the lives of those we open up to.


Thank you, my friend, for helping me to heal a little bit deeper. Your openness allowed me to further deepen my own healing and understand myself in a more significant way. May we start a domino effect for the millions of others who need to hear our stories.


Namaste.