Motherhood Isn’t Always a Dream Come True

When trouble finds children, it finds their mothers too

Catherine Oceano
Fourth Wave

--

An orange sunset sinks below a hill with trees. Boats rest on the water can be seen reflected
Sunsets are works of art. Photo credit: author, Catherine Oceano

Hope is a dream — a whisper on the wind of possibility that joy could be on the horizon.

Motherhood is like that, and more. Mothering creates in us a vision for our children. Always cast in hope. A dream that sometimes does not end in the way we imagine it will. But we hold onto it.

I’ve lived in that space for most of my life. But not always. There has also been darkness. A blackness that is thick as mud, as voluminous as the crust of Mercury. The journey has taken me to the depths, as far down as the ocean goes. I’ve stretched my body on the floor, arms outstretched with a wish to be drawn down, to somewhere from which I will never swim up.

But I have always returned. Emerged from the bottom, gasping for air and seeing just a patch of sunlight to call me. The ascent is hard. I’ve been holding my breath, hoping I can hang on long enough to take in that first gulp of oxygen that will bring me back to life.

The surface is wavy, I float while I wait for the rescue that in the end must be of my own making.

A knock at the door could happen at any time

--

--

Catherine Oceano
Fourth Wave

old but not dead, mother, partner, grandmother, writer, Canadian Become a Medium member and support great writers like me.