JOY Ride

Late one night we sat and talked about her condition. Surely in 1985 people don't die from adhesions. What about laser beams? I ask. No, the doctor says there is nothing to do, that adhesions are part of you. They grow like your life. They grow more in some people than in others. All a doctor can do is move them around. Cutting them would cut the lifeline.Last time the doctor looked in, some adhesions were choking the one kidney she had left; others attached to her uterine wall like cement. Her case was closed, he said. You shouldn't have had that fourth child at thirty-five. You're lucky you're alive.

I am the fourth child, born light years apart from the others. My mother didn't want me. She grew sick and weak. She couldn't imagine taking care of anybody else. If 1945 were l985, she would have aborted me. She didn't even name me. She turned her face away in pain. My mother's sister Madge named me after a sailing ship. She had her family tree traced back to the Mayflower. Woman to woman, I understand my mother's condition.

My mother is always quick to add that she didn't know that I would bring her such joy. It was as if you knew, she always said. You smiled everywhere we went. I am my mother's daughter. All these years later we sit and laugh over the light in our lives.

Her stomach is swollen now. I'm pregnant, she says, with a laugh. She was pregnant with my life. She is pregnant now with her death. I have brought her both pain and joy like my own children now. I am my mother's daughter. We ride through the pain to joy.

The author, age 20 months 
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"JOY Ride" was published in the Paterson Literary Review 29, Spring 2000.

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