Letters to My Unmade Child
Dear ,
The first time Mommy thought you could ever be something, she slammed her fists against her tummy. That was the banging on your roof. Why the stars fell from the sky.
I don’t know why I did that, other than the fact that I was paranoid and kind of stupid when it came to how human biology actually worked. Mommy was also afraid of the way the older man, who would never turn out to be your Daddy, felt like the truth. Felt like anything that came of his matured body was powerful enough to defy the laws of logic and basic anatomy.
That, and I suppose I’ve always known I wasn’t right for you, baby.
Mommy’s embarrassed when she thinks about how little she actually knew about her own body. She’s embarrassed when she thinks of her younger self curled up on her carpeted room, crying like you were even possible when she knows now that it was nothing. Just a pump and half that never ended in anything other than a disappointed Daddy. Mommy, after realizing the roof was spinning above her, said she wasn’t “down” anymore.
Down can sometimes mean more than a direction.
And roofs can spin, but you knew that one already.
We’re lucky this Daddy was nice enough to listen.
Some others are not so lucky.
Sorry, not sorry,
Mommy
Dear ,
Your grandparents on Mommy’s side ask about you all the time. They want to know where you are. When your birthday would be.
Nowhere.
Never.
They understand my answers, but they don’t like them. Every time they ask, they hope the answers are different.
Your grandma and grandpa would love you so much. They have so much love to give, and they get frustrated because it can’t go anywhere. Mommy is horribly self-sufficient. Uncle never answers the phone. And, well, grandma and grandpa hate each other.
So their love has no place to go but you, and I won’t make you.
Their love just flies into the air when they speak about how much they’d care about you. I like to think they’re speaking to you that way. Somewhere in between all the dust, can you hear them?
I know I’m right in my decision, but part of me feels sad that you will never know them. My tummy aches in a place I didn’t know could contract. It nurtures this sadness in a place where you would be. No, it’s not your worst enemy; it’s not a period. It’s just that, more people should know your grandparents’ love. It feels a bit wrong to keep you away from them.
Grandma, for starters, is the world’s greatest cook. She would spend all day in the kitchen making you all your favorite foods. She’s very shy, but would never shy away from you. She would rub your belly, your head, your back, until you fell asleep. And then she’d just watch you as you dreamt. She’d do some superstition above your forehead so you dreamt sweet things. If you cried, she’d ask, “Why? Why? Why? Who made our sweet little [insert your name] cry?” She would wrap you in a blanket and carry you on her back like she did with Mommy. And if you’re anything like Mommy, you will love it and grow to crave the arcs of her shoulders. She would rock you and sing to you and call you “cutie” and eat your hands.
Grandpa is not as shy; he would swallow you up whole! He would pinch your cheeks and hoard you, likely making a beeline through any house or crowd to get to you first. And then he won’t let go. He’ll do this trick where he’ll hold your tiny butt in his open palm, put his other hand slightly on your back to keep you from falling, and balance you while he tuts. And if you’re anything like Mommy, you will miss being small enough to where such a thing was possible. He won’t call you “cutie,” but something he finds more endearing. Something like “punk” or “brat” as he chews on your cheeks or runs his course hand through your hair. Don’t worry, these are good things in Korean.
I wish you could meet them. Sometimes, I get close enough to wanting it that I almost think of making you.
But then I stop. Grandma and Grandpa don’t know that their separation is part of the reason I can’t get myself to make you. Some part of Mommy believes you’ll eat her sadness through the umbilical cord and come out unsure of where to spend Christmas. Who to call first with good news.
Torn, through and through,
Mommy
Dear ,
Remember how Mommy said she thinks you might eat her sadness through her umbilical cord?
It feels likely. It feels all too probable that I’d pass down this feeling to you. If not through my blood then through our very name.
Han.
한.
“Han” is a Korean term that translates to deep, psychological, internalized suffering. You could look it up so you know Mommy’s not just being whimsical or silly. “Han” is actually used to describe this intrinsic rage. Some inexpressible pain. Sorrow.
You might think it’s silly, all this sorrow stuff being passed down. But you haven’t lived yet. You don’t know how likely that is.
Mommy is sorry, but she just can’t take that risk. She wouldn’t do that to you—birth you with a bellyful of sadness.
So she has to cut the cord herself. Another cord, not the umbilical one. This cord is figurative, which basically means the opposite of literal.
What’s literal?
Well, literal means stripped down to mean exactly what something says. Literal means real. Literal is the opposite of you.
I know, I know. Lots of words and meanings and double-meanings and turnaround meanings.
Good thing you don’t have to worry about all that.
Oh, the other part of your last name?
It’s Taylor. Probably derived from “tailor,” when last names just used to be a person’s literal profession.
It means, back in the day, Daddy’s ancestors altered clothing to fit.
You don’t have to take Mommy’s last name. She understands.
Figuratively,
Mommy
Dear ,
The darkest part of my heart is scared of what could happen. That I might make you and resent you. Like one of those female dogs who refuse to claim her litter.
Am I a bitch?
Mom
Dear ,
Maybe another, even darker part of my heart is afraid to admit that actually I do want you.
It’s so rare, but there’s this tugging I feel inside me sometimes. I don’t understand what it is. Mommy has never felt it before. Not once growing up. Not even when she met Daddy. But it’s been happening from time to time.
Is that you? Pulling from the ether? Begging from the firmament?
Make me. See me. Hold me.
I feel it every time I see a little girl with small eyes ask her Mommy if a watermelon is ripe at the grocery store. It’s enough to bring me to my knees, you know. If they are speaking Korean, the feeling gets even stronger.
I feel it when I see two parents hold their child’s hands and swing their body into the air. I feel it when I pick up your second-cousins and spin them around, or pretend the floor is shark-infested waters with them. We always laugh and I remember, only briefly, what it feels like to jump on cushions. I feel it when I see close friends hold their precious cherub close to their cheeks. Smelling the skin they stitched together. I feel it when I walk past a pair of small shoes. I always have to stop and hold them up, gawking at the sight.
But something happens. Mommy just can’t imagine a foot that small, and then the tugging feeling goes away.
Why can’t Mommy imagine a small foot? The puff of toes? Pale, green veins like threads from the universe.
Just quit it, baby.
You don’t know what you’re asking for, baby.
Begging back from the other side,
Mommy
Dear ,
Mommy had a bad day today. It was painful to be alive.
Nothing terrible happened. Not really. All I had to do was wake up and I felt that way. Mommy just felt and thought sad things. It just happens that way.
Baby, you don’t always have to fall off a bike or a swing to feel unbearable pain. You don’t have to scrape your knee to cry so deeply. No. Some of the worst pain happens on the inside.
You can cry and suffer from just thinking a certain thing. Remember a distant memory. Hear a song. Or a voice. You can cry from wanting something so bad. When people you love say the wrong thing or cancel plans last minute. When someone you know—not even yourself!—cries and is sad. Sometimes, it’s even worse when someone else around you is sad and you’re powerless to help. All these things can tear you in half. All you have to do is be alive for that to happen. All you have to do is think something, and you can howl hard enough to bring down the world. When you remember that you were brought here without a choice, you may howl louder. I will not shush you.
Other times, terrible things actually do happen.
Disease ravages a body. Can decimate populations, even. It can start the second you’re born. Or see that you die a painful death when you’re wrinkled and frail.
Cities burn. Flesh chars in the flames. Sometimes from high winds. Other times from bombs we choose to drop from the sky.
I can name a million other terrible things and reasons I don’t want to make you, but just think about this for a second. How the pain is literally everywhere.
In the wind. Or falling from the sky. In a body, at its start or at its end. Like pain is the most natural thing in the world.
What’s more, people kill each other. On purpose. Baby, it’s scary here.
People can kill each other for no other reason besides something called hatred. Mommy doesn’t want to teach you what that means. It’s just the oddest, scariest thing. No matter how badly I want to keep you from it, chances are, someone might hate you. Mommy and Daddy would love you no matter what, but others might not feel the same way. They could hate the shape of your eyes. Your boyfriend or girlfriend. How you choose to dress or what you want to call yourself.
People might not even hate you, but hate and judge what you believe in.
When you’re a kid: the tooth fairy.
When you’re older: God.
And almost everything in between.
There’s too much of this, and it’s everywhere.
You’ve got to find way to deal with it all, baby. All the bad stuff and bad days. Goodness, there’s so much to live with. So much to deal with. Have I said that already?
No matter, you’ll learn as soon as you’re born, baby. How much there truly is to bear. You’ll learn when you wail for a nipple. Clamor for a binky. Yearn for something.
Yeah, you’ll have vices before you even have teeth.
Noise machines. Swaddling. Blankies.
What are these things but ways to comfort you through the suffering? To bear with life?
You know, I’ve thought about keeping you in a soft, padded box filled with colors and rainbows and puppies. I’ve thought about convincing you there’s only Mommy and Daddy on this earth. That there is nothing outside of the walls of your beautifully-colored box.
I was desperate, searching for an answer I’d never need.
That’s how things became so outlandish. The padded box and everything.
Truth is, it just seems easier to keep you from this rather than have you experience these feelings and call it just a part of life.
Who needs it?
But then again, maybe the world would benefit from more people in it like you (would be). You would make it a brighter, sunnier, more loving place, wouldn’t you?
Even that, I can’t guarantee.
Baby, it’s all just a cluster-fuck (sorry, Mommy is working on her potty mouth). I just know that, if you’re made of Daddy and me, you will feel the weight of all this so deeply in your being. We’d make you as compassionate and loving as possible. And if we do that, we’d somehow open you up to more pain.
Is Mommy making any sense? Forget it. It doesn’t matter.
Your first catch-22,
Mom
A Postcard
LAGUNA BEACH, CALIF. ——
THOUSANDS STEPS BEACH
Wish you were here!
xoxo,
Mom
Dear ,
Mommy had a beautiful day today. She wishes you were there to experience it with her. It was everything life should be. God, I felt so happy. Life is incredible!
It was all these small, silly things that made me so deeply happy.
Baby, it was the wind on my face. It was looking at the impossible shape of a flower. Watching the wonder that is a sunset over a seascape. It was the last lemon and poppyseed scone behind the glass display at my favorite bakery. It was ten minutes to read my book with a fresh cup of coffee that Daddy brewed. An old couple dancing on the street to a performer who loves what they do. Someone loving what they do, because that in itself is a miracle. Life is so full of these beautiful things and people and moments that Mommy wishes you could feel. Wishes you could experience.
Did you know that a hummingbird flaps its wings in a figure-8? How old would you be when you get your first kiss?
Baby, Mommy wishes you knew what it felt like to laugh. How it starts in the depths of your belly and belts out of your mouth. Sometimes, you can laugh so hard that it aches and brings tears to your eyes (yes, beauty and joy can make you hurt and cry, too—just another one of life’s weird things).
Mommy wishes you knew what it felt like to hug someone you haven’t seen in a while. How warm and soft and needed it is. Mommy wishes you knew what it felt like to eat your favorite food. The way your mouth salivates, and not because you don’t have teeth and you’re a baby, but because of the way steam comes off a plate and how a clove of garlic smells. Mommy wishes you knew what Led Zeppelin sounded like. The first guitar riffs to “Whole Lotta Love” and the bass that trickles in, like something incredible’s about to happen. The color of the moon from down here. Driving a car for the very first time, Daddy pointing to 10 and 2. Jumping in a pool like a pencil, or a cannon ball.
The splash would be magnificent. Like sweat you get at a concert that’s more like heaven. And who would your first love be? What song is playing when you understand that butterflies can exist in your body?
All these beautiful things and people and moments.
It’s not all bad, baby. In fact, Mommy and Daddy would give you the best possible life we could. We’d show you all this and more. We would tuck you into bed every night and read you a story. We’d take you anywhere you’d want to go. We’d sing and dance and play and run and do everything with you. We’d love you. We would love you so much.
All these beautiful things (story) and people (We) and moments (love).
I’m sorry, honey (you). I’m sorry, pumpkin (you). I’m sorry, angel (you).
People sometimes says to Mommy that she’s depriving you of knowing life. How beautiful it can be. Some people think it’s selfish (and by people, I mostly mean your old-school great grandma), but I just can’t think of anything more selfish than making something of myself when I’m not right for it. When I’ll look to you to heal something in me.
No, I can’t do that to you. I won’t ask you to revive some light I lost. That’s my fault. I won’t ask you to be happy and show me happiness if you’re not. I won’t ask this of you, but in exchange you will never know the scent of garlic, okay?
I’m not right for you, baby. But I wish I was. I’m sorry (me).
But really, you don’t know what you don’t know, don’t you? You don’t know what it is exactly you’re missing out on. What it is to want. I say all these beautiful words—bakery, hug, music, kiss, honey, revive, Led Zeppelin—and it means nothing to you.
I think there’s a beauty in that, too. One that’ll never, ever tarnish or go away.
Whole Lotta Love,
Mom
Dear ,
It’s not necessary to know a single thing.
Sincerely,
No one
Dear ,
Even if Mommy and Daddy could give you good and beautiful moments, life is still so hard. It’s hard no matter how many Led Zeppelin songs you sing. How good garlic smells.
You’ll be expected to live beyond the beauty of it all. You will. And the beauty will be so much harder to find as you grow up. You’ll be too tired or too busy or too confused or too scared. Mommy knows.
It’s just that, life on the other side expects a lot out of you. It started, even, long before you were (n)ever a thing.
One time, one of Mommy’s old bosses told her, “You should have a kid. It’d be a good place for you to channel your need to be perfect. Something greater that you actually need to take care of. You know, a distraction.”
You see, Mommy was letting all the hard parts of work get to her mental health too much. And then he said this to her. Said this about you.
Imagine that? Being nothing and still having the expectation to do something for me? Distract me? Be something I can focus my attention on so I don’t burn out at work?
I’m sorry he put that on you, baby. But it’s just the beginning. Once you’re born, you’ll be expected to do more.
It won’t just come from Mommy or her old boss, either. It will come as naturally as breathing. And it’ll never really end.
If you think it’s unreasonable that I expect you to latch or do tummy time for thirty minutes a day, wait until I tell you what comes next. What you’ll be expected to do just to have a roof over your head, food to eat, clothes on your back. Or how people will expect you to look, speak, or behave. Boy, is it hard!
Girl, it’s even harder.
And the vices you find to help you make it through each day might not be as soft as your blankie. Sometimes, your vices can even destroy you. I know, I know. What the hell, right? Some of the things we seek to help us simply deal with life can stand to kill us. Pretty raw deal all around, I’d say.
Listen. If you’re here, you’re going to have a job. You will be expected to live, and not live, all at the same time.
“That’s just life,”
Mom
Dear ,
It’s a strange, strange time to exist.
You have to exist, not once, but twice. Online and offline.
Once is hard enough,
@Mom
Dear ,
Sing loudly with your best friends and tell me if you wanna be alive.
Hear pianos and harps and tell me if you wanna be alive.
Listen to someone you love tell you they want to kill themselves and tell me if you wanna be alive.
Feel like you wanna kill yourself and tell me if you wanna be alive.
Watch a man get beheaded on the internet, your closest friend get married, your dreams fall apart, fireworks, or a baby smile, and tell me.
Listen to Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” and tell me if you wanna be alive.
Watch a child get beaten to death and tell me if you wanna be alive.
Fall in love and get your heart broken and tell me if you wanna be alive.
Tell me what’s worth it to you. Would you know after you read a book? Watched Citizen Kane, or Moonlight?
Tell me how any of this makes you feel. Do you like the sound of pianos? Do you give a shit about harps? Do you want to experience it all?
You don’t know, do you? Tell me. Do you mind this never knowing?
Mother doesn’t always know best,
Mom
Dear ,
The funny thing is, Mommy is not at all unhappy. She actually is very grateful for her life and so happy to be here. She lives a good one. She’s had to work hard, but she’s fortunate and surrounded by people she loves. She smiles and laughs often. Is so grateful. Beyond words.
Your first joke,
Mommy!
Dear ,
I don’t know what to tell you about me. How well do you really need to know someone you’ll never meet?
I can tell you my hands are on the smaller side.
I weigh 135 pounds, but my license says 120.
My eyes are like almonds; color and shape.
My favorite color at the moment is yellow. I like how much of a blight it is. Like, “Jesus! That’s yellow.”
My phone case is yellow so I can find it easily. (Mommy loses things easily, just ask Daddy.)
I love watching scary movies. I love most movies, really. I love sitting on the couch and watching TV shows for hours.
Hmm. What else do you want to know?
Well, I’m really bad at running. People think I’m joking until I’m heaving on the final minute of my mile, which clocks in right around the 17-minute mark.
I’m equally bad with numbers. That’s why Daddy does the taxes. Helps you with your math homework.
But I’m good at giving advice. I’m good at staying calm in stressful situations. I’m a decent cook and somewhat athletic, despite my cardio.
I’m afraid of loud noises. I grit my teeth and often shove my fingers in my ears like a child (Mommy can act like a child, too, sometimes).
More than afraid, it actually makes Mommy upset when she hears really loud noises.
What’s loud?
Loud is when an car revs its engine on the road.
When a lawn mower comes too close to a window.
When a plane takes off.
When a baby cries.
Mommy’s real name is Michelle.
What about you?
Mommy
Dear ,
You would like Daddy a lot more.
Mommy is too scared to let you out of her sight. She knows she needs to work on this, but she’s paranoid and germaphobic and irrational. She doesn’t even let Daddy touch plants because she’s convinced they’ll kill him. Sometimes, she has to say things in her head or do specific things to save the world and everyone she knows from dying in a terrible way.
Mommy has nightmares. A lot of them. And it makes her afraid of so many things.
In more than half of them, Mommy dies in a slow and painful way. And she can feel it. She can feel when a knife goes through her abdomen. When she falls from the sky. When she’s being chased. When she’s being burned. Sometimes, she wakes up crying. Daddy has to hold her and remind her it was all a dream.
I don’t want to make you because I feel like you’ll be made of the same thing of my dreams. This same ethereal, haunted mycelium. This is why I have never dreamt of you, baby.
Mommy knows she’s a bit weird and strict, but it’s because she’s scared. Fear doesn’t make for a very good or fun mother, I’m afraid.
I’d be afraid to let you go to your friend’s. If you wanted to eat something that fell on the floor. I don’t believe in the 5-second rule. I see death at a playground. I would hold off on buying you a car for as long as I could. I’m just so scared something might happen to you. I want to protect you from anything ever happening, but I know that’s not realistic. I know that’s not giving you any credit. I know it’s no way to live. So I’ve decided that you won’t.
Mommy doesn’t know why she’s like this. It’s not like she grew up this way.
Yeah.
She’s so sorry she isn’t right for you, kid.
Go ask your father,
Your mother
Dear,
If I don’t give you life, I at least owe you the truth. I’ll be real with you. You’ll be…
Well, I don’t know what you’ll be with me. But here goes.
Sometimes it just comes down to the simple fact that I don’t want to do things like change diapers or lose sleep or stop drinking coffee or have my nipples chewed raw or take care of something for the rest of my life.
None of that really seems as rewarding as people say it is. But maybe it is. I’ll never know, would I?
I guess Mommy’s idea of rewarding is slightly off? Maybe it’s wrong that rewarding to me is a day off doing fuck-all. A vacation where I can fall asleep on the beach without having to give a shit about anything else. The privilege of shrugging. The words, “fuck it,” in that order.
Are those things more rewarding than when you’d take your first step or bring home a macaroni-adorned Mother’s Day craft you made at school? Would a hard-earned cigarette fill me up more than when I’d look at you and know, truly, unconditional, otherworldly, boundless love?
I know it’s infinitely harder to actually do the whole thing and have you than to just sit here and lament. I know how I sound.
Sorry for real this time,
Mom
Dear ,
The easiest explanation to give for not making you would be to simply say that I don’t like kids. That’s what I’ve always said, but that’s not exactly true, you see.
The truth is, I’ve grown to love them. And that’s the first time I’ve ever really admitted that to anyone. (Shhh, even Daddy doesn’t even know this!)
But it’s true.
Mommy loves all the babies and kids in her life. The beautiful babies she sees her friends make. The precious puff of toes that’s new in her family. She would do anything for them. For you.
You’re all so wonderful. I believe the word itself was made after people like you. The way you look at a marble—your small, dirty hands clenched around the thing like it’s the world. It’s enough to bring tears to my eyes, and now mine look like the cloudy marbles, too.
Smiling, too, is kryptonite. How precious and incredible it is to smile in a world so scary. You inspire me. You show me fearlessness. You show me a stupid spin in the pool (watch this!) and I really do think it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. Because it fucking is. You? A human being? Made of someone brave enough to meet and raise you? Look at you! Floating, spinning, splashing, happy. Goodness, I’m so grateful for you. I’m in so much awe of you. You’re all the most important thing in the world. You and your friends, all your laughter and hurdling and triumphs and stupid, incredible spins in the pool. Boldly living like you were brought here to do so.
You are the single-most incredible miracle. A baby.
Nothing on you but vaginal dust when you arrive. Proof of your mommy’s sacrifice just to meet and know you. A version of her died to create you, and it’s not always a bad thing. I’ve learned that from watching incredible mothers who tell me they’ve become better for it.
Why don’t I want you? Where are you? Where is that part of me? Will you ever come to me? Will I ever change my mind?
It’s not like I’m some moral crusader for not wanting you. But then what does it make me? Why do women have to think about shit like this at all?
Listen, baby, I’m just not convinced. I’m not made, wired, formed to be what you need. I don’t have the stomach for it. I’m still searching for my own heart. Building a soul I could live with. I’m bumbling through life myself, baby. A coward with a few good and bad experiences, calling it a life.
What’s life?
Life is… Life is so many things.
It’s uncontrollable. It’s a gift. It’s a burden. It’s beautiful. It’s a board game we’d play together. It’s terrifying. It’s not that serious. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It’s something Mommy wishes she could give you, if the circumstances were better. If you take anything away from these letters, it’s that, baby. That I would if I were braver. If I were stronger. If I could guarantee you’d be happy every day, safe at all times, on a planet and world made to sustain and welcome and love and accept and appreciate and support and protect and love and love and love and love you, I might bring you here.
But it’s just not that way, baby. It’s not. And I’m not.
I’m sorry I’m not the mother you need. I’m sorry I’m not a mother at all. I guess that’s just the way Mommy was born.
The fear has always been deep in Mommy’s belly. It is a part of me, and I don’t know if I’ll ever make room for you.
But I do miss you. I want to meet you. Know your name and watch you blink. I’d like to trace the curve of your nose. Count all ten fingers and ten toes. What would you be like? How would you smell? Would you have your Daddy’s ears, or mine? One of each?
I’m afraid I have more questions for you than you do for me. I told you I’ve got it all wrong.
You have to know, how badly, how beyond anything else, I want you to continue living amongst the stars. Human consciousness is unnatural and not made of the same magic where you are. It’s made of tar and abomination, and blended with desire; it makes us sick, baby.
Live unalive, think of nothing, be nowhere and everywhere at the same time, be, do, breathe, don’t, forever and ever and ever. God will take care of you better than I ever will. This is all I can give you. Don’t ever underestimate how much I love you. I love you and love is you and love is me and love is love is… Baby, my love for you is beyond words. So much so, it doesn’t even exist.
When you are alive, you learn things like mourning something that you’ve never had or even wanted. Mourning is not the opposite of night. Mourning is… Baby, I only wish I could explain what it is or how that feels. You will have to trust me on this when I say it just hurts.
Love Always, and Never,
Michelle
