Inadequate

Sweet November my lovelies...

The child was awake already, Uju could tell. She wanted to awaken and bring him into bed with her but her body wouldn't move. He wasn't crying, just making cooing noises to himself. He never cried, this one, so unlike the ones that had come before him. They said a mother always loved her children equally. The people that said that obviously had never been mothers. She couldn't even hide it and she didn't try-this was ‘her child’.

The man besides her stirred and she thought of their conversation the night before.

‘You aren't helping him. Coddling him will not help him. Sooner or later you will have to face the fact that he is special and needs more than you can give him.’

She had said nothing in response but the look in her eyes had stopped the man for going any further. Who was he to say what she could give or couldn’t? Who was he to talk about the limits of her motherhood? Who was he to make her feel like she wasn't enough for a child she had nurtured within her own body for 8 months and 10 days. She had looked at him without saying a word and her husband had hissed out loud in frustration and dumped the brochures he had been holding onto her laps. She didn't even look at them before dumping them into the trash.

She reached out for the man now. She held on tight, hoping he could tell that this was her way of trying to make peace. He turned to her and she opened her eyes. It was then she saw that he had been awake for a while. There were tears in the brown eyes that were the exact same ones on the child that continued to coo.

She knew then that she wasn't the only one that loved the child in this way. She knew then that loving him the way they did would consume them and leave nothing for anyone else, not even themselves, if she let it. She knew then that she had only one choice.

There were still ears in the man’s eyes so she cleaned them with the sleeve of her nightdress. She took off the dress and gave of herself to him.  She left him fast asleep and found the other children. They slept on peacefully and her heart swelled with love for children that were just like her; ten fingers, ten toes, and full mental capacities.

The child was still cooing when she finally got to him. He turned his eyes to her and smiled that smile that must have been what the smiles of angels looked like. She smiled back.

‘Maaa- Ma’

That was the limit of his speech and she had always secretly been pleased it was her that his tongue chose.

She picked him up, her four year old, her baby, her failures and her successes rolled into one. Together, they found the trash bag and weeded out the brochures of the St. Nicholas Home for Special Children.

Song of the day: Enya- Only Time