Lora Freeman Williams Archives - Mothering in the Middle

Excerpts from Ch. 6 of the Book, The Wilderness of Motherhood

by Lora Freeman Williams

Dear Reader: We are so pleased to present an excerpt from MotheringintheMiddle.com contributor Lora Freeman Williams’ newly published book:

When Isaac is five weeks old, my mother dies. She has just turned 65.

My home phone rings while I’m taking a nap with the baby. It awakens me, and I decide to let it ring. When my cell begins to ring next, I realize that it is the hospital trying my second number. The nurse tells me Mom’s oxygen levels are dropping, the end near.

I cry hard for a few minutes. I’m thinking I can’t do this alone. I need help. So I call a friend, and Karen picks us up a short time later.

When we arrive, I see my mother is gasping for breath, and I feel like the little girl I once was, in big trouble. It’s like times she wanted me to fix things that were far beyond my ability to fix. The nurse tells this is what the body does as “part of the process.” She also tells me that Mom can still hear.

I go into her room, holding Isaac. […]

Finding Compassion in Motherhood

by Lora Freeman Williams

When I held my son in my arms for the first time, awe welled up within me as I gazed into his liquid, soulful his eyes. He returned my gaze, wailing to me just how difficult his journey had been, how shocking this moment was to him. I have never been so fully present a witness to someone’s story as I was at that moment.

As a new mother, I wanted to be that present to him every moment of his life to come. I was in my late 30s, educated, a Buddhist meditation practitioner and in recovery from a massively abusive childhood. I would be everything my mother was not able to be most of my childhood: present both physically and emotionally. I would give him the experience of having a parent witness his experiences with so much love that he would grow up to be deeply connected to himself and to others, trusting that the world is a safe place. […]

100% Responsible Mothering, But Never Alone

by Lora Freeman Williams

Image courtesy of www.artfulparent.com

I was a single parent for one month shy of four years – the first years of Isaac’s life. Prior to having a child, I’d considered getting a dog thinking I was finally ready to take on that weighty responsibility. However, just before I took that step, I took a pregnancy test. So much for the dog.

Fortunately, I had learned a vital lesson about responsibility, while in my early 20s.

I’d been floundering with an eating disorder for a five years. I’d sulked and skulked my way through college, therapy, churches, and friendships, looking for someone to rescue me from myself. I’d found no prince nor adoptive parents, and I was deeply depressed. I wanted to die. […]

The Wilderness of Motherhood

by Lora Freeman Williams

A pregnancy test is like a Rorscach: one’s inner world gets tossed back at her in sharp relief. I stared at mine and felt the weight of my childhood and the hope of a different future in a dizzying twist of emotions.

My own mother had become pregnant with me in 1968, when she was single and an as yet undiagnosed schizophrenic. Exhibiting a striking combination of paranoia and common sense, she moved herself and me a few hundred miles away from her dysfunctional relations and embarked on the next 13 years of our life together. […]