By Tiffany Doerr Guerzon
@TDGuerzon
Vessel
A duct or canal conveying blood or other fluids
During pregnancy, blood flowed through the vessels in my umbilical cord to nourish and grow my three babies. After my first child was born severely underweight at term, my later pregnancies were closely monitored. It was determined that my placentas quit working in the third trimester, the nourishment slowing to a trickle. This meant that instead of putting on weight in the last few months in utero, my babies stopped growing, suspended in time. Once they fell below the tenth percentile in size, labor was induced and I delivered small, but healthy, children. While no reason for my placental insufficiency was ever found, the high risk of stillbirth meant I needed to rest and stay off my feet. To stay home.
As the vessels carrying nutrition to my babies narrowed, so did my world.
Later, as I cared for these tiny beings, feeding them with my milk, my world narrowed even
more. Underweight babies need to nurse more often. I couldn’t be away from them for very long as none took a bottle.
My world narrowed further.
Vessel
A ship
I am the captain. Once when I got sick, my then teen daughter told me, “You can’t get sick! If you go down, we all go down!”
I laughed, but it was kind of true. I was the one keeping track of schedules, doctor and dentist appointments, transporting everyone and keeping the family fed. No longer moored at home, we were at sea, steering through the often rough seas of childhood. As captain, I took care of my crew, swabbing the deck while keeping one eye on the horizon, scanning for trouble ahead.
Sometimes that ship felt too small and I longed for a glimpse of land, but we were in it together.
Vessel
A person regarded as having or embodying a particular quality
Mothers embody the quality of nurturing. Long after being weaned, my children needed
sustenance in other ways. I was the one they cried to, leaned on, pushed against. I fed them,
drove them and advocated for them. I volunteered in their classrooms and hosted their friends. One with autism, one with a life threatening nut allergy and all with anxiety, mothering wasn’t easy. What did come easily was the nurturing. When they were little, I instinctively knew how to soothe them.
But as they grew, so did their problems. I could no longer make them better with a hug and a kiss.
Now my nurturing must stretch to encompass the distance between us.
Vessel
A hollow container
When I used to take my kids to parks, I dressed them all in bright red fleeces, so that I could keep track by counting the red dots among the sea of other children’s black and blue jackets.
They were allowed to run around, as long as they stayed within my field of vision. Now, I see those red dots moving further and further away.
For the last 26 years, my world has been contained within this vessel. Now with two kids having left the nest and one teetering on the edge, my vessel feels hollow, empty. Today, instead of my life narrowing, it is expanding, and I’m not sure what to do with all that space.
Tiffany Doerr Guerzon is the mother of three kids, two are still living at home but never seem to be in the house. She is working on refilling her vessel with hiking, writing and art.
Like what you are reading at Motherwell? Please consider supporting us here.
Keep up with Motherwell on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and via our newsletter