How could a mother
give up a child? That’s
the lowest, most despicable
thing I can imagine, she says,
disdain and contempt written
on her twisted lips and stone face.
The woman goes on and on.
She’s a mother herself and she
knows there is no way she’d
ever give one up. She loves
her kids more than that.
How can a mother do that?
I can’t think of one reason
no matter what that would
separate me from my child.
I think I know though. I think
the mother who gives up her child
is courageous and farsighted.
She see’s beyond herself
and what is hers. She might
be hungry, abused, no job,
might have no home or way
to protect and care for her child.
Perhaps she simply
knows she can’t do the job.
Whatever the reason, it has
to be the biggest act of love
a mother can perform, to
think of her child’s best interest
and give the baby the best she
can offer. Perhaps she loves
her child enough.
Judy Roney
April 26, 2009
4 comments:
I really don't know the answer to that question either. All I know is I could not do it....
I think one has to walk a mile in those shoes. Kinda like saying "I would never, whatever. Truth of the matter, no one really knows what they would do until looking it in the face.
Strong poem of empathy Judy. And I agree with you BIll, never can know for sure what I would do in some one else's place - role reversal is imperfect. I know, as a child who was given up, that I had a good upbringing, a good family, a good life. I don't know what would have happened if my birth mother of both birth parents had tried to raise me. I live in the known, not the unknowable.
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