The Holiest Thing I Know

Learning to hold both the pleasure and the pain.

Every year on my son’s birthday, it pours rain. The day he was born, the fireworks did not linger into the next morning. Gloomy skies wrapped themselves around the window of my hospital room. The next year, Tropical Storm Chantal altered all the plans we had to celebrate. But I woke up at 4 a.m. to change my plans. This year, it held out for him until he made his wish and cheered himself into two.

Then it poured.

the view from my hospital bed

I don’t remember who exactly told me that rain on your birthday is a good omen. That it means good luck and blessings. It made me feel less sad that, though my baby be Cancer like his momma, he hadn’t had a summer day of sun just for him.

I always say that as he passed through my body, I gave my luck to him. A motherly offering of well wishes. In return, I’ve coined myself favored instead. Every birthday, the sky has cried before I could. And maybe that’s mercy. Maybe it refuses to let me carry all the weeping alone.

This week, two years ago, I held my son for the first time.

Look how little

His heart monitor kept time beside us. The respiratory therapist whispered not to move too quickly. I remember staring at his face, covered by the noisy CPAP, terrified that breathing too deeply would somehow rattle him back into his isolette. I had imagined motherhood as rocking chairs and lullabies and comfy pajamas and slippers as we matched in our diapers. Instead, mine arrived wrapped in chest tubes and intubations, in wires and latex gloves.

Weeks after his birthday, I touched his skin ungloved. His hair was softer than I could’ve imagined. No more than two handfuls big, no longer than my forearm, the respiratory therapist placed him on my chest. And maybe, for the first time, I felt like a mother.

The thunderous nature of my entrance into motherhood has caused me to learn to step lightly. It reminds me that this very thing is as precious as it seems. Still so very delicate, like my one-pound baby.

Two years later, I’m still cradling the same baby to my chest. He still looks up at me like I am talking too much. The vibrations from a CPAP machine are now little hand taps as he hugs me back. I think this is as holy as it gets.

2 year old hang out session

My son sat in his first church recently. A sanctuary turned into a communal space for gathering, but it still be holy.

My son will never know pews the way that I do.

He’ll never know the hard candy at the bottom of Grandma’s purse or the digging for coins as the ushers came around to usher us to the altar. He’ll never know the excitement of hearing the coins chime against the offering plates.

But he scaled the pew like the kids I watched in the back row of church. We were never allowed back there. The Lord’s house didn’t allow for no playing. And the back Sunday school room was open to anyone who seemed to need it. We were to sit in our family-appointed pew. Sit prim and proper and quiet next to generations of people who’d come because my grandma told them to.

Gripping the wood of the pew that was older than he and I combined, his bare feet squished the red teddy fabric beneath them. He knocked on the wooden panel next to our seat and looked back at me to join him. We created our own pocket of music amongst the poems being read beside us. He turned over my shoulder, offering smiles and “hi’s” to the people in the rows behind us. He climbed over into the arms of a man I did not know. I watched as he bounced and laughed and played with him. He came back to me again.

There are still times I believe only I can keep him alive. Only recently have I offered myself days of reprieve. Months in the NICU will teach a mother that. Watching other women care for your baby before you’ve even had a chance to look at him will teach you that. It convinces you that vigilance is love. But watching him laugh in someone else’s arms, I had to swallow my survival and make room for trust. Because maybe that moment was his to have alone.

He’ll never know pews the way I have.

But he’ll know auditoriums, and they’ll be holy.
He’ll know stages, and they’ll be holy.
He’ll know open arms and warm hearts, and that’ll be holy.

He, he will know that he is holy.

Because holiness isn’t found inside stained glass, though he yelled for me to bring him to it, to run his fingers against the colors.

It lives wherever love refuses to leave.

It lived in my mother and his father, who laid eyes on him and came back to let me know he was okay before I could even get off the operating table.

It lived in the long walks down corridors and underground tunnels, though exhaustion had stolen my smile.

It lives every time he reaches for me without wondering whether I’ll catch him.

It lived in birthday candles burning just before the rain came.

I read a ton of books before my ushering happened. I read a ton of poems that sang my sweet boy’s pitter-pattering feet to sleep. Every night, I still share words with him.

Nikki Giovanni wrote Mothers for mothers like me to find. She taught me a poem her mother taught her, and she taught her son.

i see the moon
the moon sees me
god bless the moon
and god bless me

She says,

we must learn
to bear the pleasures
as we have borne the pains

Maybe that is what these last two years have been asking of me. To stop waiting for joy to apologize for suffering. Because the apology ain’t coming. But to let them sit beside each other, with their own cups of respect. To believe that miracles can arrive carrying both sunshine and rain.

Since the birth of my precious baby boy, I’ve done my best to hold the pleasure and the pain. Decorating his bedside as his weight slowly increased from 500g to 750g. Every gram earned feeling like another prayer answered.

@herblackhandIn this family, there is nothing too small for celebration. 🎉 I struggle to celebrate myself but this journey has brought out my inner celebrator and planner. I know the baby won’t remember any of this, but I will. As much as people tell me the #nicu will become a fiction of my imagine once we’re all home I know that I’ll remember it too vividly. Most of the projects that fill my baby’s bed space are to keep me from going insane and to give me some sense of control in this situation but are also to honor my child. To fill the space with joy and celebration. The baby may be receiving around the clock from others but each day I’m able to do more things independently in my own way. And like always…one day closer to coming home ♥️ Shoutout to @Dollar Tree for the 🎈 #postpartum #pretermlabor #prematurebaby #incompetentcervix #pretermbaby #pregnantlife #blackmoms #nicuawarenessmonth #postpartumrecovery #23weeker #nicumom #nicumama #neonatal #preemie #preemiestrong #nicujourney #nicustory #healing #selfcompassion #growth #lifeafternicu #nicuawareness

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Collaging custom art for him weekly to show my admiration. Fighting with fire codes and bitter nurse managers, trying to give my boy a piece of heaven in hell.

Don’t they know he be holy!

Don’t they know he was ushered by the rain.

Before I knew his cry, the sky announced him.

Every July, the clouds gather to witness him. Ancestors guiding his feet as he’s learning to walk. Calming his breathing as he learned to sip from a straw. Dimming the lights in his room to allow him to rest.

Outside the hospital the day before I got to hold him

They wait until my boy laughs.
Or sings.
Or dances.

Until he blows out another candle.

Until another year has found him.

And then—

they let go.

Whispering,

same time next year.

❃ 𓆸 ❃

Thank you for making room for my words today. I hope you leave carrying a little more tenderness than you arrived with. If you’d like to keep reading, subscribe. If you’d like to pour back into this work, you can leave a tip. Until next time.