“Why don’t you write about something happy?”

My mother and mother-in-law have both asked me that question. My mother asked it in relation to my fiction, and my mother-in-law said it the other day in reference to this blog.

I laughed both times and replied with something along the lines of, “who likes to read happy stories? I don’t.” It’s true.  I dislike happy movies. I loathe predictable, sappy books. So I suppose it’s not a surprise that I am consumed by darker thoughts, or at least deeper thoughts, when it comes to writing and storytelling. In school, I devoured war fiction and nonfiction. People often asked why I preferred to read about such horrific times, and I wasn’t quite sure how to answer them. After some contemplation, I realized that I’m the kind of person who cannot bury or look away from the terrifying, the depressing, or the traumatizing. I have to look it in the face over and over. I have to see it from all angles and in every form. I have to touch it and hold it in my hands. I have to grow accustomed to its awfulness and absorb its weight.

I suppose this is why I think and write about some of the darker, tougher aspects of pregnancy and motherhood. This may also explain why I am not afraid to give voice to some of these topics. So many women hesitate to talk about this side of motherhood. The other day I told my husband that I’m often plagued by horrible scenarios and images of something terrible happening to Ember Eve. For example, I walk out the door and see her running toward the road, her little arms flailing in her goofy puppet way. Cars zoom by and her little legs are carrying her there at incredible speed.  Or, I imagine that I wake in the morning and her crib is empty, save for a few of the loveys she clutches while she sleeps. I stand, bewildered at the empty space where her warm body she be, unable to believe that someone has taken her during the night while we dreamed.

I am sure all mothers fear these terrible scenarios at some point or another, and thank goodness they don’t become a reality for the vast majority of us. But sometimes I have to let myself think of them. I have to imagine what it would be like to live through that horror. I  have to keep looking, keep thinking, and keep holding them until I can shake them off and remind myself that Ember Eve is alive and well.

My favorite fictional character that I’ve ever written (to date) is a mother whose son has died. At the time, I wasn’t a mother, and I’d never lost someone that close to me. The novel was inspired by the death of a boy in my parents’ neighborhood; he drowned in the pond in front of their home. His mother ran inside to answer the phone and was only gone a minute. But that’s all it took.  And for a long while afterward, they didn’t sell the house; they remained living there. Every time I drove to my parents’ house and passed their house, I marveled at their perseverance. It consumed me. How could they stay? How could they walk and drive past that pond every single day?

And so I had to imagine it from both a mother and a sister point of view. I had to keep looking at it and imagining it. I tried to hold it and understand it. But I had no business writing that story, and I know that now. Now that I am a mother, I see it all in a different light. The second a baby is born, the woman who gave birth to the baby changes. She is no longer alone, ever, because she has given life to another human. And if she chooses to become a mother, she loves another being in a way she’ll never fully understand, and sometimes it’s terrifying. Sometimes it wakes her in the night, and she races to the nursery to press her hand to her baby’s chest so she can feel it moving up and down. She will never be free, and she will always fear that which can harm her child. She will protect her child at all costs. And her love for the child will continue to grow and evolve as the child grows and evolves, but she won’t be able to give this love the right words. She won’t be able to fully explain what has happened to her.

These posts may be dark or depressing or even whiny. But that’s me. That’s how I work through life’s experiences and transitions. And, as I promised both my mother and mother-in-law, I try to include some hope, some little ray of of light, in what I write. So I will end with a small, happy-ish thought. Ember Eve is worth every moment of agonizing doubt, every moment of crippling fear, and every moment of paralyzing terror. I tell her every day that she is the light of my life. I will subject myself to heartbreak again and again if that’s what it takes to be her mother.

And it will be worth every second.

(Photo: sometimes you need a little Jamo to get through the day. Don’t worry- the cap was ON. This rambunctious toddler didn’t actually consume any alcohol!)