Monday 10 May 2010

Living her life

Yesterday I thought a lot about my birth mother. I wondered if she was still alive and if so whether the pain of my absence still tore through her sometimes. I hoped not. I hoped that she could feel my silent thank you and know that she had enabled a miracle for me.

There's really only one comfortable place in our house for me these days - the recliner. As I sat there throughout Mother's Day, getting up now and then to fix Deaglan a snack or spend five minutes on the floor building a robot with his blocks, I felt acutely how unlike this life hers most certainly must have been while she was pregnant with me.

How as a very young and poor Muslim wife she likely spent her free moments pleading with her God to make this one a boy. That after the beatings, abuse and shame she endured when her husband saw that their first born was a girl, she would have given anything to just make this one male.

But it was not to be. Because after me, two more baby girls followed. And with them came a life more miserable than the one she had already known. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to live on the streets - the cruel streets of a poverty stricken land - with a newborn and a toddler, having no money, no food, no shelter, a damaged reputation, and the heartache of having been forced to leave your older two with the very man who resented you enough to almost kill you for giving birth to only girls.

And yet here I sat in my $600 recliner, in a place where gender only makes a difference if you are trying to plan out your nursery, expecting another boy. Here only but for the grace of God and her courage.

I wondered if life could get any more unfair.

10 comments:

  1. Oh, I thank God for her courage! What a heartbreaking reality! Still so much misunderstanding in the world...to blame her?! I'm so glad for you that your life is so very different! Not much longer now, is it? Thinking of you! Love, Janine XO

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  2. I always think it is ironic that it's the man's sperm that determine gender. Cannot really blame the woman.

    I feel so horrible for your mother but she really did step up and be courageous and look at the life you have.

    I am certain that some day in this life or the next you will get to converse with her. I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that reunion! Golly, she would be blown away by the family you have created!

    Be well, Dearest Kim.

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  3. I suspect two things:

    1) That your mother thinks of you/grieves for you often. (I asked my mother if she every thought of the child she had to given up for adoption before she was married and she said, "Every single day.")

    2) That she would be over-joyed to know you have a good life now.

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  4. Your birth mother sounds like an amazing and very courageous woman. What a heartbreaking life, no one should have to endure that type of treatment, based on the gender of a child she bore.

    I'm sure that she thinks of you often and would be so very happy that you have the life that you are living now. What a beautiful person you are and how blessed you are to have created such an amazing family. It is only going to keep getting better.
    XXXXXX

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  5. Your mother was definitely courageous. Her heart is with you. She is a part of you. I'm sure your spirits (here or in the next life) will unite once again.

    Hope you are well Kim. I think of you all the time. Hugs :)

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  6. i read this post last week and thought about it the whole week. your mom is/was a strong woman for sure....and i am sure that is where you get your strength from. i am positive that she thinks of you everyday. she is a mom....that is what mom's do.

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  7. Blessings to your Mom for being so strong and giving you life. Life that you are now giving to your sons. Kim, I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day reclining and resting up to bring your other baby boy into the world.

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  8. What a story! Bless your mom for trying so hard.

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  9. Oh my goodness. I can't even imagine what your mother (and you and your sisters went through). It puts a little perspective in our "bad days".

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  10. I cannot even pretend to imagine what your mother went through and you also. Thank you for sharing this on your blog. I am grateful that you are able to have a better life now

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