Keep Me In the Light

I have been away for some time, navigating new life in a new place. I moved back home to California 3 months postpartum, right before Christmas. I left my youngest child’s father and embracing motherhood as it stands, I am slowly altering my perception of what I thought my reality would be, leaning into the rawest parts of life after birth.

Who could have known?

Reflection:

I opened my eyes to see the morning’s light. My heart sank. I sat up in my very own bed, in my very own room, in his home. My body ached all over. My hips felt swollen, my back bruised. I slowly stood to my feet and looked behind me. Malachi lied there asleep, his breath quick movements in his tiny body. I began walking to the bathroom. Every step I took, it felt like my pelvic floor was falling out from underneath me and I couldn’t see past the pain, the exhaustion, the rage that I had to endure another day alone. Another day.

I had just given birth two weeks ago, and I had already been asked for both hot meals and sexual favors. Not only did I feel depleted in every way, I felt intensely disgusted, sad, defeated.

I was overjoyed for my baby, but I hardly had any strength to care for anyone else. I got up anyway, and I made things happen that I shouldn’t have. I sacrificed the part of me that needed to be loved, to be held. I felt like my entire body was flipped inside out, and I was still giving. My whole world upside down, still giving. Up all night, still giving.

I prayed for endurance. For strength. For Malachi’s father to look at me with compassion and pride.

I felt disgusting and ugly.

His words traversed my mind constantly, like deafening screams, they became my own. I could hardly feel my own tenderness. Or see my own reflection.

9/11/23 - 5 days postpartum

Moving through birth is like moving through a chasm in time and space where nothing but spirits live. And when you come back, you come back distorted. Disfigured. Unrecognizable to you. People around you, they think they can see you, but they’re not really looking at you. What they’re seeing is something else entirely.

What’s inside has moved, molded, changed. Now, you are in the birth canal.

You are in the dark.

And a long painful, grief-filled, holy experience of being pushed out of the Earth’s body awaits you. Dying to be born again.

Like a fresh baby, you need -

To be fed. To be held. To be spoken to. To feel warm skin next to yours. To be loved. To be touched. To be washed. To be seen. To be figured out. To have your needs met. To be spent time with. To be cradled in the middle of the night. To have no fear of being alone, because you’ve just come from your mother’s body.

You need life breathed into you.

-

During these moments, all I could do was survive. I could not search for tenderness. It had been ripped away.

But during those long, dark nights, I prayed and prayed. I cried and I talked to God. Through Malachi’s screams, I grew strong. I thought and asked myself a million questions. I perseverated and grew close to God. I sought comfort and wisdom. I whispered and I searched with my hands, for anything I could grasp that would give me comfort, give my life meaning.

All I had was my baby and my broken body.

All I had was God.

---

I thought that if I left him, I would be happier.

And I am.

I thought that if I left him, my mind would be my own again.

It did not magically work that way.

His words still haunt me. His regard for me still causes me to shudder and feel ill.

But, I’m learning how to grieve. How to be strong. How to love myself, tenderly. How to care for my family with a joyful heart. How to have a good attitude about life and living. How to commune with God and teach about His love to my children.

Through the eyes of God.

Through the eyes of God.

If I looked at myself through the eyes of God, would I be more merciful? More kind?

Would I recognize my inherent design? The magnitude of my mind?

As I hold my head to the sky, my heart cries out for an immersive love. The wind on my cheek whispers to me with a loving hum.

Through the eyes of God.

I’m sure that when you reach this place, your capacity for pain has become so expanded that punishment isn’t the first thing on His mind.

Our Father who art in heaven.

I used to wish that I could be free of this world. When I was a small child, I made a song about being a bird and flying away. It was the first time I acknowledged that I didn’t have to stay.

But through the eyes of God, there is purpose in my life. Through the eyes of God, His hands molded me so that I could testify.

His heart swells and tears fill His eyes when I talk about my plight. I can’t help that my human condition has made life unbearable at times. How do I traverse this place? How do I find the light?

And keep it burning.

Through the eyes of God.

He sees my innocence and beauty.

My heart and my deepest desires.

He sees the silent tears I cry when the house is asleep, the aching that comes from my body, the quivering, the heat. The humiliation, the defeat.

The torment that brings humans to madness. The mental anguish.

Birth has brought upon me a rebirth.

Birth has questions flowing through me,

harsh waters that sculpt the land.

They ask me what do I believe in?

Through the eyes of God,

I am made clean. I am pure.

Though I wrestle with darkness, it does not hold me like it used to.

I am washed in blood, made holy with the tongue.

I have sacrificed to know Him.

My Father who art in heaven.

Through the eyes of God,

I am worthy.

Desires have been planted in me, roots reaching down to the hands of my ancestors.

My body is a temple of reverence, my womb - a world of honor.

Keep me in the light,

Through the eyes of God.

//

As I move through this season of my life, I look back with great sorrow, admiration and love for all I have endured. And I am finding my way forward.

It’s been a practice of giving myself grace as I learn this life again. All parts of it. Being a mother to my children, a daughter to my parents, a woman in this world, a child of God.

I hope to begin writing more consistently, and embracing the internal dialogue that makes its way to my heart. Thank you for reading this letter, for supporting me, and for being an encouraging place of rest.

I love you!

Diauni