Helplessly Knowing

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.
My first Mother’s Day.

The holiday used to exacerbate an emptiness in me. I flash back to Mother’s Day 2021, listening to Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young:

“they are one person,
they are two alone,
they are three together,
they are for each other.”

Haunting. I hugged the hollowness and stared into the sunshine knowingly—not hoping, not helplessly. My child was out there.

To listen to that song and let the lyrics soak into my bones—it was a quiet remembrance observed annually. I carried the message with me always. My hollowness echoed to the tune of that bridge. I flash back to driving on the BQE toward Staten Island, Memorial Day weekend of 2019. Blue skies rained gold over a Brooklyn spring Eden. Wind in my hair. I held my belly with my right hand, reached for his with my left, and searched those eyes.

There were moments. I’d look into the backseat and think, “This time next year, we’ll have a little roadtripper back there.” He’d smile.

I hated driving for a while. Looking over my shoulder became a nightmare, as if a ghost were looking back at me—reminding me.

As a woman, you never forget the feeling of an empty womb.
It echoes forever.