i am not a wise mother.

I hope I am becoming a wiser one.

Motherhood consumes me.

I did not / do not intend for this to become a mommy blog, but you might have noticed I recently changed the name. Knowing me, I might change it back. I’m not sure yet. But my hours, days, minutes, and all my breaths and prayers are consumed with motherhood and the unique journey we have been called to.

We—my little family and I—are navigating a valley so deep and dark that I can only refer to the poetry of Psalm 23, where the psalmist writes, “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me.”

You are with me. The LORD is my shepherd. Emmanuel: God with us.

In my motherhood, nothing is what I expected; nothing is how I envisioned. I don’t yet know how to write about it in a way that honors the intensity of our life and the privacy needed alongside it. Can I just say this, right now: a few weeks ago, our dear family nurse practitioner kindly but firmly said to me: “Hillary, he should be in a facility by now.”

“He” being my beloved little boy.

I am tender with the fact that one day he might read these published words. I want him to know that through it all I love him fiercely, intensely, and will always love him—I am convinced—more than any human could love another human soul. How then can I tell the truth of my motherhood? How can I cup your face in my hands and urgently whisper to you that I need your prayers more than I need water and bread? How can I describe for you what it is like to be beaten with a tire pump by someone not even five years old? How can I explain the terror of racing down the hallway for the haven of a locked bedroom door? How can I tell you that my small child’s angry outburst sent me to the emergency room with an injury when he was only three?

How do I protect the vulnerable season we are in, he, his father and I; how much gets to be shared and how much gets to be known only by we three and a few trusted, in-person souls?

How can I confess that I don’t know how to be a wise mother, a good mother?

If anything, perhaps I am becoming more humble.

My first maternal failure should have been solemn foreshadowing. “Oh, I have been around breastfeeding all my life,” I declared blithely as my midwives urged me to come to class. Solomon had not yet been born, but as they say, ignorance is bliss. I had no clue how ignorant I was. Isn’t breastfeeding the most natural thing you can do? A woman’s body sustains life for nine months, then bears down to deliver an entirely separate person out of herself. I had never given birth before. I did not know what to do, but my body did. My son emerged, followed shortly by a placenta. Isn’t nursing the same? I had witnessed years of babies from my own mother, and plenteous friends, as well as nature revealing the joyous miracle of sustenance from one body to another. No one suggested there could be anything other than placing baby on the breast and then instinct takes over.

I should have taken the class.

My fall to humility came like hot, searing, serrated knives. They tore at my breasts, shredded the centers of my throbbing and bleeding areolas, while I cried for two years at the pain. I was determined to keep going until he was two, because I’d heard that was best, and I wanted him to have everything I could give. He nursed for the last time on his second birthday, at evening, and then I laid him to rest, felt relieved, and then—predictably—came the guilt.

How can I tell the truth of my motherhood?

I don’t know.