Our Children Do Not Belong to Us
By Miriam Edelson
The vomit green walls of the hospital ward are anything but inviting, but the baby in my arms is simply gorgeous. Pure and helpless at only a few months, he is very still as we wait. He’s not had it easy. An emergency C-section delivery means his head is perfectly formed. The sweet smell of baby powder wafts from his compact body. We wait some more. Finally, a doctor beckons from the hallway. He seems pressed for time. No introduction. No chair. He tells us our beautiful baby’s prognosis is a year, two at the most. I might just hurl.
One of the pearls of wisdom shared with me when I first learned my son would not live very long was that ‘our children are only lent to us, and do not belong to us.’ At that moment, I did not take much succour from this notion. Today, as it pertains to the theme of ‘ownership,’ I think it is quite apt. Children are not our property. We do not control them. They are ours to love, cuddle, and raise, but we do not own them. And some are not able to live out full lives and will predecease us in a way that feels so wrong. It goes against what we understand to be the natural rhythm of life. And it says something about how all relationships are transitory.
Notwithstanding the cautions, I loved my son at 100 miles-an-hour. No holds barred.
Jake was a beautiful boy with soulful blue eyes that erupted into smiles at the flicker of light in his face. He was unable to sit, stand, or speak, and he received nourishment through a feeding tube to bypass his raspy breathing. And yet, with a voice that sounded like the cooing of a pigeon, he communicated his pleasure and discomfort.
His short life bestowed untold richness upon mine. While he was alive and for some time after, I wrote and advocated on behalf of children like him. My life was full as his younger sister joined me in pickets and panels to advance the needs of kids with disabilities and all children. Jake’s passing was not unexpected, but it was still jarring, leaving an indescribable emptiness.
*
One summer evening not long ago, in a spectacular place on Lake Huron, I carry a medium-size yogurt container filled with his remains. The ashes sparkle in the light as I take a small handful and toss them over the still water. Some ash clings to the rock below while the rest creates a translucent, milky soup just below me. Gradually I scatter the contents of the container and watch the water as it flows. A good rain, such as we expect that night, will fully disperse the ash into the Channel.
I am wrenched by sadness—it is the ultimate letting go. And yet, I also experience a certain feeling of peace. “Swim strong little man,” I think to myself. “You’re free now.” When Jake died, a First Nations friend told me that Jake was now ‘free to run, the wind in his hair.’ This evening I remember those words and they again bring me some solace.
And yet, in the tent at night I am restless. In that ethereal state between dreamscape and wakefulness, I envisage that milky water again. A young spirit boy emerges and swims away. I can see his strawberry blond hair and lanky frame. It is my Jakey. I am filled with that strange combination of sadness and peace as he strokes away into the near distance. Quietly, I again say goodbye to my sweet firstborn.
*
My boy was not mine to keep, but throughout most of his short life, I also had his younger sister, Emma, to cherish and hold. She’s now an adult, straining to craft an identity separate from me. At twenty-nine, she is achieving this as she forges her life’s path. I admire that she creates, designs with raw materials, makes objects with her hands that are functional as well as beautiful.
My girl is a woodworker, making her way in a mostly male world of craftsmanship. I trail behind her in the exotic wood emporium we visit occasionally to pick up her supplies. Proud as a peacock, I watch her assessing the wood that she needs, measuring and sawing boards on forbidding, noisy machines. Cutting quite the figure in her tool belt and tan overalls, she tells me about the wood she has selected, the maple and the softwoods, and, of course, the burled wood on display.
She is now launched, mostly independent. There is some feeling of loss for me, but I am feeling pleasure and accomplishment for her having reached this moment in her life. While at home in my kitchen, I touch a piece of jute, cord that appeals to me in its sturdiness and heft. At one time, the link between Emma and me was strong and unbreakable like the rough jute cord. Time passes and she matures, and she needs a less robust link with me to develop into herself. A soft yarn connects us. She thrives as the connection lessens, until eventually, only a fine diaphanous thread dangles between us. Still enduring but not nearly so hefty as the jute cord.
Suddenly I recall that when she was a young girl, maybe six or seven years old, she was like my little sidekick. That changed over time, as her friends became more important to her. But I adored that closeness, “Oh Mommy, I have so much to tell you!” I was her first confidante.
Now, I am not. And so, I strive to let go and to find my own place in this reconstituted order. I cradle a piece of burled wood in my city girl hands. Originating from a tree that was stressed, it is a round knotty growth that when polished will be full of swirls and beauty. I peel away the bark to investigate and marvel at the entangled splendour underneath. Craftspeople say that it can take thirty years for its full beauty to emerge.
The swirl of my burl is my life stories, my children, my joy and pain. Through my writing, I shine a light on that jumble of memory, fact and emotion, searching for truth. Like my stories and myself, the burl wood grain is twisted and interlocked, resistant to splitting. I look upon it with wonder as it teaches me to find strength in its misshapenness.
I need that strength. In my interactions with my Emma, I constantly try not to overstep, to respect the boundaries that she erects. It can be painful. Sometimes the edges feel like barriers but they can also melt away, as malleable as the situation commands. She can be blunt and won’t be controlled. I admire that in her.
*
This is how our children separate out from us. It is a process that begins so early—even as they learn to take their first steps away from the safety of our embrace. As they venture out into the world, there is greater evidence that they don’t belong to us, but are ours for only a time. We have to learn to live with that lack of control, an uncertainty woven into our relationship. Still, the child can have a strong sense of belonging to her parents, to a family. It is part of their identity, whether the experience has been positive or negative or, like most of us, has been somewhere in between.
Given these entanglements, what do I wish for in my relationship with my daughter as an adult? Closeness. Honesty. My daughter is the swirl in my burl. Tapping a creative thread nurtured in her since always, she is becoming proficient in her chosen craft. A sphere so different from her mother’s vocation. In awe of her trajectory, I feel enormous pride as she launches away from me and moves through the world. Unlike the tree when its burl is hacked away, she’s going to be all right.
We are both creating, each in our own way. Finding the rest required to be creative continues to be a challenge, but one met more easily as time passes. For me, anyway. My daughter’s life, as it unfolds, may include her own struggle to find space to follow her artistic pursuits. I look forward to holding my future grandchildren and to offer her the gift of time to create. Motherhood as invention, the chance to bring beauty into the world, resonates for us both. Our children to not belong to us, but for the time they are here, we treasure them. In the words of poet Kahlil Gibran,
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Miriam Edelson (she/her) is a neurodivergent social activist, settler, writer and mother living in Toronto, Canada. Her literary non-fiction, personal essays and commentaries have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, various literary journals including Dreamers Magazine, Collective Unrest, Writing Disorder, Palabras, Wilderness House Literary Review and on CBC Radio. She was a finalist in both the Pen 2 Paper nonfiction contest and the Women on Writing contest. Her first book, My Journey with Jake: A Memoir of Parenting and Disability, was published in April 2000. “Battle Cries: Justice for Kids with Special Needs” appeared in late 2005. She completed a doctorate in 2016 at University of Toronto focused upon Mental Health in the Workplace. The Swirl in my Burl, her collection of essays, is forthcoming in April 2022. She lives with and manages the mental health challenges related to bipolar disorder.