One of my chapters from “The Gift”, a memoir in progress, has been published by Kitaab Literary Magazine of Singapore.
It is a chapter set in Chengdu, China, that shares moments with my mother, reflections about her, as well as observations of my own development into becoming a “good enough” mother.
We’ve parted at many airports, my mum and I. This time it was Chengdu. With her help we were reinstalled in our Chengdu home as a family, and finally she was on her way back to hers, to see dad in Zambia. As always, the entire day of the goodbye was an emotional one for her, her face puffy and wet, eyes red. She never held back her tears.
And also as usual, I didn’t say much. I held my emotions inside and waved strongly. I turned away from her as she walked through the security gates and only when she was gone did I allow the tears to come.
Nine months earlier, my mum jumped on a flight the moment we asked her for help. I was pregnant with the twins and had to be on bed rest. It was the longest period of time that I’d spent with her in my adult life. She left my dad, her work, all she was familiar with in Lusaka, to live with us, first in Chengdu, then in Hong Kong where the babies were born. Rahul and Leila spent 6 months indoors, in safety, avoiding the dense Hong Kong crowds, the flu and SARS.
My mum rocked our new born babies to sleep in her arms, her nails well-filed, no matter the circumstances, always a noticeable feature of her elegant, long fingers. Her soft smile and voice could soothe any nerves. She knew when the babies were hungry, tired, or fussing simply because they were overdressed and the heating was on too high. She heeded our call for help and got us from a precarious pregnancy all the way back to Chengdu with two babies in our arms. Along the way she trained me at attending to these precious, fragile beings with some balance and fortitude.
I’ve often wondered if having the ability to simply attend to someone in need without trying to change or fix them or their situation is an inherent expression of a compassionate person. I wondered how my mother learned this. Was it age? Did she absorb it from her mother, or from the loss of her mother when she was just a teenager? From her grandmother, her aunts, sisters, and father, from being the eldest child, from her culture and tradition, or actually from the lack of ever having singular attention at all?
Within seconds of our goodbye and my tears starting to spill, I turned my focus to what needed to be done here and now, and there was plenty to keep me busy with the two babies: their feeds, naps, baths, bedtimes and then sleepless nights. I was practicing yoga again, and I’d also started my blog, Our Little Yogis, my way of staying in touch with friends and family, and of connecting with mothers of multiples across the world. I read all I could including their blogs, to validate my experiences, to learn from these other women. Since my own mother and my mother-in-law didn’t live with us, I have no sisters and had no sisters-in-law at the time, and none of my close friends had children, I connected online, mostly with women my own age, to learn, to share my own ideas and support back for them.
It was a new beginning for me, the start of finding my own way as a mother. As a teen, I’d wanted to be more independent and stronger than my mother, so I got involved in sports and tried to focus on my education believing that would set me apart from her. I had the judgments all wrong. She is gentle, and to a teen that might seem weak, but her kindness comes from a stable place of immense inner strength.
And now it was my turn, what kind of mother would I actually turn out to be?
Everyday, I walked Rahul and Leila through the streets of Chengdu in the “lightest” double stroller we could find, a foldable, sturdy navy blue Maclaren double stroller. We stopped to play in housing complex playgrounds, downstairs at our own Kai Lai Di Jing, Gloria Regent Garden complex, at China Gardens next to us with their blue and red dolphin swings that were a favorite, and with the loud musical, neon colourful, mechanical rides next to the Hong Qi convenience store down our road, Tong Zi Lin Bei Lu.
As Rahul and Leila grew, they found their words and we chit-chatted when I strolled them through Chengdu. From early on, they forced me to think, to own my identity and dig up thoughtful responses.
“Why papa choosed you?” asked two year old Rahul.
“Ah, very good question, but this one you have to ask papa!”
”You and papa is in love?” He continued.
“Yes we are. Papa and I love each other.”
“You and papa loved each other before me and Leila came out of your belly?”
Leaning across the stroller from above to look into his eyes, I said, “Yes, we did, honey.”
Then Leila joined in, “Mama, where was Leila and Rahul before we was in your belly?”
“Hmmmm…” I thought about this one for a minute, “your body wasn’t anywhere. You were an idea that mama and papa had.”
I remember discussing my fear at not having the correct answers to some of these profound questions, with a friend. What if I say things that will damage them emotionally or worse, shut them up completely? I worried about their physical and mental well-being incessantly. Physically they were beginning to catch up in height and weight to other toddlers their age, slowly but surely. They were beginning to verbalise their curiosity, even becoming somewhat philosophical.
My friend, a student psychologist and twin herself told me to help them wonder, that I don’t need the correct answer, that I could flip the questions back at them, keep them curious, and keep the conversations free and welcome. This was a new way of thinking for me, where I didn’t need a concrete answer or solution to everything. But would I actually manage to work this curiousity into my way of being and help them grow up with more of that?
One day as I strolled Rahul and Leila past Hong Qi convenience store, we stopped to play with a dragon statue outside a Traditional Chinese Medicine shop. The shop’s unique rancid dried ginger and strange dried herbs smell overtook the entire block. The dragon had a concrete ball as large as a football, that moved freely in its partially open mouth.
A passerby stopped me and asked in Mandarin “Are they dragon phoenix twins?” referring to Rahul and Leïla being fraternal boy/girl twins.
“Yes, they are,” I replied in my broken Chinese.
“Waaaaa” she exclaimed with glee, and a clap, “You are very lucky. How happy you must be.”
This happened at least once or twice a day that a complete stranger would stop us, and applaud us for being blessed with dragon phoenix twins. Boy/girl twins are the embodiment of the concept of a perfect companionship, yang and yin, a blessing to any family.
The dragon was the ancient Chinese emperors’ emblem, representing power, honesty, and wisdom, while the Phoenix, that of the empress, a large pheasant with peacock-like coloured feathers representing peace, prosperity, and a striving spirit.
In the country of the one-child-policy, not once did I feel jealousy or envy from people around us, but only genuine happiness and joy at our blessings. The one-child-policy, implemented by the Chinese government in 1980 limited most to having only one child per family, in order to curb population growth. There were exceptions such as if both parents were only children themselves. Total strangers smiled, caressed Rahul and Leila, and tried to carry them in their arms. Everyday without fail I was told, “How cute, what curly hair, and what big, beautiful eyes they have.” They reminded us of the double gift we had.
People associated twins with joy and luck to such a degree that almost no one seemed to realise that at times I strolled our dragon and phoenix around the neighborhood for at least an hour in the hope that the movement would lull them to sleep, and with some wishful thinking — both of them at the same time, so I could have a short break. They needed a constant production of milk, not to mention a heightened alertness from us because they had now started to move more independently. While Rahul was racing to a power plug, Leïla would be reaching for the hot water dispenser. I felt split and my anxiety was rising.
Only once did a mum playing with her own two year old son ask if I was not exhausted taking care of twins. Almost immediately, three mums around us responded on my behalf, “It’s pure joy to have two, and especially if they are a dragon and a phoenix.”
Had my Mandarin been better, and my honesty less veiled by culture and fear, I might have answered for myself. True, I fought hard to have these babies and I love them with all my heart, but sometimes I was utterly exhausted and afraid of being a mother, of being entirely responsible for the lives of two beings. I was living purely on adrenaline and cortisol. I wanted to complain at times because of lack of sleep, or because I was irritated by their hair pulling, and snatching, but I knew that if I let any of these feelings surface, I might be flooded by them, by the fatigue and fear. It was important for me and for the babies that I learn and appreciate the moments of joy, and luck of having my dragon and phoenix. It was a time to mirror my own mother’s resilience, a moment to find my inner strength and to grow.
By bedtime I was exhausted. I often fell asleep before Rahul and Leila did. I couldn’t do the routines and structured parenting some mothers and some books expressed. It was not something my mother or my mother-in-law had done, it was out of character for me to feel like I was forcing anything on these little beings, to leave them to cry or make them wait for food, after all we had been through in the NICU I was alert and present. There was an anxiety in me, a sort of PTSD. I needed to do all I could for them, most probably more for my own satisfaction than they actually needed.
“Rahul, can you choose a few books for us to read tonight?”
He brought 3 of his favorites.
“Tuttle tuttle tree.”
A comb, a brush, and a bowl full of…
“Mush!” he beamed, as we said goodnight to the room, the moon, the kittens and the mittens.
“And capillo,” he said about the hungry caterpillar.
He tossed and turned.
I sang the usual lullabies; nothing seemed to relax him.
“Can I tell you a story?”
Immediately, he was still. Even in the dark room, I saw his wide open eyes, distant and soft, staring at me. Waiting.
So I told the story – the one about their lives.
“When you and Leila were tiny, tiny, tiny, you were in my belly. Right here. Rahul on this side,” I said pointing to the right side of my belly, “and Leila over on this side.” I said, pointing to the left, under my ribs. “As you grew bigger, so did my belly. It grew and grew and grew. Right after you were born you and Leila had to spend some time in the hospital. You became strong and big very quickly, and you came home after only 3 weeks. While you were in the hospital mama and papa used to spend all day with you, caress you, talk to you, and sing to you.”
Then I sang to him in the hopes that he’d fall asleep.
“This was my song:
You’re just too good to be true.
Can’t take my eyes off of you.
You’d be like heaven to touch.
I wanna hold you so much.”
Rahul’s eyelids were getting heavy. I continued the story.
“Later, while I used to go and see Leila in the hospital during the day, you stayed at home with your two grandmas: teta and nani. They took very good care of you. Papa went back to Chengdu, and came to visit us every weekend, and when Leila came home you met each other! You touched each other’s hands and pushed and played with each other.
And when you were 5 months old, we left Hong Kong and we joined papa here, and we were all together again.”
He drifted off into his dreamworld.
It was Leila’s turn. I laid down next to her. She was fidgeting. I skipped the books and the lullabies.
“Mama and papa sang songs for you while you were in the hospital. Papa left a recording of himself singing ‘Je me suis fait tout petit,’ for you and our favorite one, ‘No Leila No Cry’. You listened to his voice coming out of the little speaker as he sang for you everyday,
No Leila, no cry
No Leila, no cry
Cause cause, cause
Cause I remember, when we used to sit
In the government yard in Hong Kong……
And then Natasha, would make the fire light
Log –wood burnin’ through the night…..”
“Mama!” She stopped me. “Can you sing Summertime?”
A couple of minutes into my rendition of the Billie Holiday version of the lullaby, her eyes closed. So did mine.
Natasha Devalia 