Mothers know things about their children. Call it intuition or inspiration, there are times when a mother just knows. Three years before my unborn son was diagnosed with Down syndrome I had a sense that it was coming. I had a baby boy that was normal and fine and (contrary to my moans of “never again” during his nauseous gestation) I knew that there would be one more baby and that whatever that baby’s condition, that baby would be “fine” too. I didn’t know what “fine” meant, only that whatever circumstance came along with the baby, we could be okay with it. I knew this; didn’t think it or hope it, I knew.
So, once I was pregnant again and the tests started coming in with results pointing to Down syndrome, and there was correspondence using words like “advanced age of the mother” (which was really annoying) I settled in for the ride. (Though first I asked my doctor to find some new terminology – I was only 38 for cryin’ out loud.)
There were times all along when I felt calm about certain results or events and that was comforting, but what I hope to describe are the times when letters or charts or results don’t matter because the mother already knows. Or when there’s a magical connection between a mother and child that no one else can be part of.
The first one of those that I remember happened when my son was 3 years old. He attended a preschool for handicapped children and normally rode a bus to and from, but on this day I had gone early to pick him up. He was just starting to talk but his teachers, in all their observations and evaluations, had never heard him make a sound. I approached unexpectedly as they rounded a corner, walking him to the front doors of the school. The moment his eyes registered recognition of me I saw his person fill with light and he said “Ma” in a loud whisper. The teachers were flabbergasted. I knew what he meant. I knew what he felt at that moment. I could give you sentence after sentence about the surprise and relief he felt at seeing me there, about the security he was experiencing in meeting my eyes, about the freedom it gave him to express and communicate. No one else in the room or on the planet knew what he and I knew at that moment. The teachers grew animated by just that one syllable – I knew so much more by the same sound.
Teachers might not be able to evaluate what happened there. I couldn’t try to quantify it in a written report but volumes were spoken and because of our familiarity, I knew the content.
It’s like the time my 14-year-old daughter inexplicably lost 10 of her 100 pounds in a few weeks and we made a visit to the doctor. Our pediatrician had a daughter whose life was nearly in ruins from anorexia, so I understood that he had to ask a certain type of questions but they were hurting my daughter as she meekly responded in the negative so I shifted the conversation along. Later in the car as I explained the doctor’s personal situation she said, “Thanks for believing me, Mom.” I knew she was terrified that she might get boxed into a corner where she didn’t belong. I knew that she recognized there was still something to be concerned about, but that she also knew, knew for certain, that I was going to work with her to figure it out. Eight years later when my daughter was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease we finally resolved what that episode was all about, but because at that earlier date I had had no question whatever about where she was coming from in her answers, all those years in-between I had had my daughter’s trust.
Why do these sureties come? They are not because I have studied anything out, or because answers are easy to find. How does it happen that these far-flung, but important, spontaneous moments occur that might influence a lifetime? I think that mothers are sometimes granted bits of the infinite. There are things that are so important or so precious that a mother is given discernment to especially know them for the betterment of her family.
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When my Down syndrome son makes that contented sigh as I embrace him, I don’t always know just what I’ve done that he’s comfortable with at that moment but I get the sense every time that it’s my job to make him comfortable in this world, that in a previous sphere he has earned my respect, and in a sphere to come I will see him as he truly is. I feel purpose and direction that comes literally from a higher power and that we are working in concert on this project that is the life experience of my son. I know in those moments that there is someone on the other side who wants success and peace for this child as much as I do.
I know that son or daughter, baby or youth, response or projection, there are times when a mother just knows. She doesn’t have to look to any other source for more data or opinions. She knows in her heart, she knows in her mind, she knows as certainly and softly as the sun rises how to read a glance, ask the right question, or to double-check a seatbelt or backpack. That knowledge comes from the same source that raises the sun – it is the gentle guidance of someone who loves her child as much as she does, but whose vision is eternity wide and whose comprehension is equally as deep. The builder and guider of the souls of men sometimes reaches out and plants an understanding within a mother which can set a course, cement a bond – protect the family. When it has happened to me it comes with complete calmness. And once I really understand what has happened there is profound gratitude for knowing that I am not always dependent on just my own intelligence . . . and neither is my child.
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