It was a long time ago, this story’s beginning. A child was trying to be born. Her mother, just a child herself, a little bitty sprite of woman. Still three months shy of her 17th birthday, not 100 lbs., tiny, bound and determined to be someone’s mother. Her small size was causing major havoc on her body this day.
The things that she should have known, she did not. The things to do, what to expect when going through your first child birth, the danger signs, what to tell your doctor…all of this she was not aware of, not because she was incapable, but because she was alone. Raised by her grandmother, mom left when she was very young. Pregnant on purpose, because if she was pregnant, they had to let her get married. A husband who was about 5 minutes older than she. You might say, she was an angry young person to do all of the things her father and grandmother told her not to do, and you would be correct. Nevertheless, here she was, in labor with her first child.
Now it was time. While modern as hell, it was 1962, and the things they know now, were not the things they knew then. They pumped a lot of drugs into that tiny body as she was ready to give birth. Her labor was long and hard. When the child finally emerged, she was blue, lifeless. Fetal monitors not what they are these days, I can’t tell you whether the medical staff expected this or not. But the young woman had now gone into seizure immediately after the birth and it took the concentrated effort of the entire medical team to save her life. The stillborn child was placed on a cold table next to the gurney and forgotten as they worked to keep the little bitty woman alive.
Minutes pass, the mother-to-be will survive. As the doctor and his nurses continue to stabilize her, for no reason anyone can name, that little blue baby begins to wail. She announces her presence like it is no ones business. Everyone turns in surprise, maybe even awe. Not expected, not expected at all.
Flash forward, 56 years later…no matter how I have lived my life in the past, I think about how I began in this life. No, I don’t remember it, this is the story that my mother told me, more than once. No matter what kind of decisions I made in the past, I make them now with this story in my heart. I still do this to people, still, for no reason anyone can name, announce my presence…and yes, sometimes with a wail.
What do you say to a person who started out like that? What do you expect from someone who decided to live even when others thought she would not? I asked this of myself, more than you think. I continue to answer myself every day.
firstnationwoman 