Holding My Children in My Heart

A mother carries her child within her body from conception to birth, approximately nine months.  The most intimate relationship.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, 

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Psalm 139:14-15

The child's survival depends on nourishment and protection the mother's body provides.  It is the picture of man's relationship with God the Creator.  As the child within its mother, man is totally dependent upon God.  And often totally unaware of how vulnerable he is.

Then the child is born.  Expelled kicking and screaming into a world previously unknown, except for sounds that could be heard pre-birth.  Yet there is still complete dependence on the mother for care, protection, and nourishment.  The bond becomes interdependent; mother's body needs the child nearly as much as the child's body needs the mother.

Life becomes a gradual letting go for the mother, and a gradual independence for the child.  As it should be.  Parenthood is working oneself out of a job.  There comes a time when the child is completely independent, except for the spiritual protection provided by the parents' prayers, and the loving, respectful relationship to last a lifetime.

When that bond is broken unnaturally, at any stage of a child/parent relationship, there is trauma, grief, loss.  Healing is brought about only by mutual effort and understanding.  When that mutual effort and understanding is absent, emotional and physical pain and loss continues. 

Months ago, grieving the loss of and disconnect from my daughters, I stumbled across an article that was a strange comfort.  I don't have that article anymore, but it began my research into something I had never known to exist.

At conception, when that first cell divides into two, one of those cells is destined to become an eternal human life, the other a placenta, an organ designed to nourish the baby till birth.  The placenta  manages to invade the wall of the womb without setting off an autoimmune response in the mother.  From about six weeks into the pregnancy til birth, the placenta facilitates an exchange of nutrients and waste products between the blood of the mother and the blood of the developing baby.  The two different bloods never mix and mingle.  The placenta takes over the function of all the baby's organs except its heart, until birth.

What I did not know was that some (most likely stem) cells from the baby also pass through the placenta into the mother's blood stream, along with waste products.  These cells are then carried to various points in her body.  Those that integrate into the mother's tissues are able to evade her immune system, and lodge there more or less permanently.  

This is called microchimerism.  Cells from two separate and distinctly different organisms that are residing in one body.  

Studies have also shown that in times of illness or injury in the mother's body, these cells may migrate to the affected area, and take on characteristics of cells in that tissue, thus assisting in the healing process.  For this reason, they are believed to be stem cells.

In plain words, a mother lives the rest of her life with cells that contain DNA from each child she has conceived still in her body.  A mother literally holds her children in her heart for life.  (And in other places)  The bond between a mother and her children is not only mental or emotional, but is actually physical.  All those sappy Mother's Day cards got one thing right, at least.

I found this intriguing, and oddly reassuring.  In this season of letting go, a normal, gradual release for some, and for others an abrupt, painful tearing away, there is grief and loss.  But even the prodigals, for whom I long, for whom I weep, have a remnant still with me.  That fact is a treasure.

But I ache for those lost ones.  To hold them in my arms as well as in my heart.  To look into their eyes and see those eyes clear and responsive, rather than dark and wary.

Daughter,

I still hold you.

It's with my heart.

But I still hold you

Just as tightly.

Daughter,

I still guard you.

It's with my prayers.

But I still guard you

Through the night.

Daughter,

I still love you.

It's what I do.

I still love you with

All my might.