Writing My Tithe for Others

        I do not know what it’s like to have to decide between feeding myself so I have the strength to breast feed my baby or feeding my toddlers so they can cry themselves to sleep instead of staying awake in a stupor from hunger pains. I don’t live in Sudan.

            I have had nightmares of loosing my children, nonsensical scenarios that aren’t part of my daily life. But I have them anyway. I have not lost a child to death. Yet I feel clutched by terror at the thought, feel deserted and abandoned, confused and disoriented by ungrounded fears.

            I don’t know if I have a right to pretend to be that mother who suffers, but I think I do because there are so many people who have never felt the fear of mother mistakes, mother guilt, mother worries.

            As a woman who has children, I have a reserve of nightmares that some women live through in daylight, under the eyes of people who could help. I know that if a neighbor doesn’t care, it doesn’t mean everyone else in town is free of guilt for carelessness. But I don’t know how far that responsibility goes. I believe that if a government has no mothers in power and doesn’t act to protect mothers and children, it doesn’t absolve my government from doing what is right for their protection. If I can call by phone and talk to that real mother in Bamako, that means I can’t claim it’s too far away for me to effectively aid her, in my world view.

            We are deluded if we think we’ve achieved equality in the work place or government. The knowledge of mothers that keeps them alive so their children survive is not driving our political decisions.  Few species are pacifists when protection of their young for survival is challenged, but fewer attack other mothers of the same species for greed or gain. Yet that is happening all the time in our world.

            I have a perspective that is particular to my family and I want to express it in defense of mothers who can’t because they’re illiterate, abused, or unbelieving that anyone cares. I have help. There are people in the field working valiantly and trying to keep us all aware of the situations that exist. They aren’t necessarily writers, though. The stories are what must be told, as stories, so we can sit back with a cup of coffee and take time to sympathize with the reality of others who will never be present in our circles.

            I want to write to torturers and ask them why they do what they do, as Amnesty USA does.  I want to thank doctors who risk their lives to treat women who’ve been raped and mutilated by criminals in uniforms, which Doctors Without Borders does. From the Center for Victims of Torture in St. Paul MN there are constant appeals for social workers and psychologists to help desperate people live normal lives in safety and security. The appeals are everywhere but the ability to encourage readers to respond actively is what writers can do, by telling the stories.

            I have lived a remarkably uncomplicated life. I have so much happiness and peace that I can’t write about any personal trauma, dark conflicts of the soul, insane impulses. But as a mother, I can feel the nightmares. As a woman, I can feel the fear. As a writer I can retell the stories, the fictions that move readers. Or not. It is my choice.

            Human Rights Watch was in Andijan, Uzbekistan when over 500 people were killed for trying to do what we do on Election Day. Photographers took pictures of individuals mourning, but I don’t know her name or her husband’s or what will happen to the tiny girl she’s clutching in her arms. But as a writer and a mother, I want to tell a story, set in a very real time and space, of her life. It may be hubris to think I can know what she’s feeling, but it is cowardice on my part not to try. I look at the photo, the delicate pattern on her silk headscarf that I might have handled in the marketplace, considering gifts for friends. The patterns knit into her sweater are new to me; I could learn them I suppose. The sparkling decorations of bits of mirrored glass and embroidery on the sleeves catch my eye. Her daughter’s dress has an embroidered collar, tiny stitched scallops of contrasting thread with little hearts, stars and flowers, like I did on my babies’ summer outfits I made years ago. This woman is crying for her dead husband in Andijan. I know what it is to put manual prayer into the clothing that keeps my loved ones warm. I don’t know what it means to bury a husband. But my imagination has plenty of nightmares to draw from, and daytime fears when I can’t raise anyone on a cell phone.

            I know I’m not responsible for the past that leads to the present disasters. However, we are the result of so much living and struggling and dying. I can write about people I never knew who may have shared my DNA. I can write about any of my cousins, third or fifty-third. There are connections that we have available to us as writers now that didn’t exist before the internet, cell phones and email.

            It’s not all doom and gloom either. In Bamako, Mali Oxfam has funded Saving for Change, a microfinance program for people to get very small business loans, earn added income through private enterprise, keep the money safe and re-circulating through the rural villages. Alima Boly is a beautiful grandmother who has a corner dry goods store and a cell phone to keep in touch with five grown children and a passel of grandchildren. She needs a little help, no more than a potluck donation for us, to change their future so her youngest daughter can go on to law school. She has always preferred doing business to taking charity. I know Alima, who was a killer-pitcher in her younger days, because we used to go for walks together in Baguineda, Mali where she would take down random mangoes that were perfectly ripe and ready to enjoy. She was my friend when I was in Peace Corps. We had a stall in the marketplace together on weekends, when I wasn’t teaching, where she sold peanut butter and I made corn bread to go with it for sale. We were an odd couple. She’s still selling goods to support her family, along with her husband who works in Bamako at the airport.

        These are stories that make micro-financing real. This one’s true, others are fiction, but the need is for a personal truth that we can express as mothers and daughters. As a writer I need to tithe my words. It’s my choice to do so. I want to write for others, to reach others who feel as I do.  I need to write for others who cannot, who have no voices that are heard, no one to photograph them and document their stories, but whose stories move us all to greater humanity.

Ceremonies Might Not Always Be Enough

 

I have the quilt I made for my daughter’s wedding, a creamy white of squares, lace and buttons, all quilted in off-white patterns of flowers, butterflies, Celtic knotted borders with their names and date embroidered on the edge. I worked on it block by block for relaxation after hours sitting at the computer doing all sorts of tasks I was only marginally interested in. All by hand, all with love for the girl who sometimes drove me crazy with worry and frustration. But she loved it, I loved it, the gift meant so much. It covered their bed for three years, almost.

Now what do I do with the quilt, returned to me after the divorce. I can’t throw it away. She can’t bear to see it. It’s folded and packed in a cotton pillowcase, existing in a negative space on the shelf on a closet that never gets cleaned out.

What can I do with the memory of so much love for a stranger who came into our family, was loved for a while, then left, not forgotten but never mentioned? His name went with photos that were thrown away, gifts sent to rummage sales. But the quilt remains. It’s stitched to my hands and heart and I can’t let go, like the memory of her happiness when she married. What do I do with a divorce quilt?

I’m working on a wedding quilt for my youngest, embroidered flowers and candle wicking knots. I measure out the quilting thread, cut, lick and stuff through needles’ eyes that are smaller than they were ten years ago. Each vine across each panel is a path of love for him to feel forever. Love and hope are as essential as warmth and safety. Each stitch is meant to hold them all together.