closing my mother's bones

A time when sisters and aunties and grandmothers and cousins took turnscookingfor a new mother.Bathinga new mother.Massaginga new mother.Honoringa new mother. Before ourwomen's wisdomkeeping ways were colonizedout of all of our respective Motherlines. Before thespellcasting of feminine amnesiaplagued our bodies with reproductive illness and womb dis-ease. A time when we still knew how tolovingly care for the body of a holy motherwho has justobliteratedthe woman that she once was in order to bring her child earth side. I grieved for her raw, tender, vulnerable body bloody. ripped open.a battlefield that called life forth with a love and ferocity that only mothers are capable of channeling untouched and untended to by hands that knew how to hold the fragile reality ofnewborn motherhood I grieved for the distorted, life-denigrating culture that we live in abandoningpostpartum mothers in their most vulnerable moments pathologizingtheir pain medicatingthem into oblivion gaslightingthem into believing thattheyare somehow the problem in a culture that purposefullydesecratesthe sacredness of motherhood I grieved for my mother's heart this woman who gave me life who had so little support in her mothering who did the absolute best that she could I grieved for the 30 year old self that she once was when she birthed herself into motherhood. The same age that I am now… A mother. With a new baby. The mostvulnerablethat she will ever be. Living in a time when women couldn'trememberhow to close one another's bones. And so, when I finished wrapping her in therebozo, I called my little sisters to my side so that we could pray over our mother's body, together. 'Thank you for giving me life. For all you did to bring me earth side.' 'Thank you for nourishing yourself so that I could grow strong inside your belly.' 'Thank you for the courage that it took to birth all three of us.' 'Thank you for giving us the childhood that you did. For all that you sacrificed so that we could have all that we had.' Share 'Okay,'I said with gentle finality, one hand on her heart.'You're closed.' 'Have I been open for 60 years?'my mother asked in shock. There was light within her that had not been there before. 'No, you've been open for 30 years,'I explained.'Since your first birth with me.' A little while later she came over and wrapped me in a big hug. 'I have the best daughters in the world.' There are many moments when I seriously question why I continue gritting my way through the agonizing initiation that is midwifery school. Subscribe now Every single daughter should be required to place her hands on her mother's body and say,'Thank you.' Every single woman should learn how to sit with a new mother and trulySEEher. Every single medical professional should know how to givein-depth, at-home care to a woman who is freshly postpartum.