Jessica Gazzola

Most new babies come into the world cloaked in celebration and the chattering of new life.   What my faith and experience has taught me, though, is where there is something new being born, something old is dying.  After spending a couple of weeks with my new-mama sister I was reminded of the sacrificial face of child birth.  An icon of the mystery of death into life can be seen in the weary eyes and body of a new mother.

It has been nearly seven years since I felt the sand of my life wash out from under me when I was first learning to be a mother.  Many of the most difficult memories I thought had washed away completely.  But, in that sleep deprived house surrounded by the tear stained receiving blankets of a child’s early weeks, a flood of memories returned.

No one can prepare you, it’s true.  Though becoming a mother is older than our species and such a common experience, it’s a lonely road.  And it must be solitary, though guides and companions can be found along the way; every mother has her own path, her own instincts, her own rhythm, and her own peace to find within the ever shifting role of nurturing a growing child.  But first the road is a descent into that death place where, we fear, we will become a mere shell of our old self.  We burn with the anxiety of not being “good enough,” with the grief of a life lost, with the sacrificial love that renders hygiene a low priority.  We grapple with the reality of our own generation waning for the new one to rise up.  Is this life?  Everyone say so; but it doesn’t usually feel like it at first.

As much as I want to save my sister and everyone I love from this harrowing experience, the only way to rise is to first fall.  Avoiding the flames means we will never know the fiery glory of becoming a new being.  God knows, childbirth is only the start of a lifetime of learning to die to self, but it is powerful and abrupt.  Mother Phoenix, show us the way!