Season of Motherhood
Season of Motherhood is part of the Artifact Motherhood project, a small snippet of what this season of motherhood looks like for each one of us.
Artifact Motherhood is a collaboration of female artists from around the world, coming together to share our stories of the joys and struggles in our journeys of motherhood through our writings and our photographs.
At the end of this article, you will find a link to the next artist and her take on motherhood in this season. You will be able to follow the blog loop from one artist to the next until you return full circle back to me.
Sometimes we find ourselves, suddenly and unexpectedly, on a path we never expected to find ourselves on. A journey that shakes us to our core, and puts everything else into perspective.
As a mother, at first I was unable to tell this story, I wasn’t even physically able to utter the words out loud. I didn’t know how to begin to live this story as it unfolded, but in the words of Rumi; “as you begin to walk on the way, the way appears.”
Our family has begun to walk on a difficult path in the last few weeks, a path to accompany and support our little boy on a journey of perseverance and endurance. We are going to climb this mountain all together as a family, giving each other the strength we need, optimism, positivity and as much joy as we can along the way.
Our little boy Mateo has been diagnosed with a very rare illness of the immune system called LCH, an illness that thankfully all the doctors tell us is highly treatable with the correct medication, an illness however that is a very rare form of childhood cancer.
The first time I heard those words, sitting alone in an oncologist’s office (due to Covid), as a mother, my whole world turned dark, my heart shattered into a million pieces, aching for my son. My strength failed me, I had to hold onto the arms of the chair to steady myself. My stomach flipped in my belly, my heart stopped beating, my body was shaking, time stood still all around me, I could not believe this was happening to our little boy.
Gradually, I tuned in again to what the doctor was saying. “His case is highly treatable with a course of chemotherapy and steroids…”
“His case is highly treatable…. his case is highly treatable…” Those words spun around in my head. Those were the only words that mattered to me at that moment.
Those are the words and the hope we all hold onto as a family. Those are the words that push us forward with optimism and joy every single morning when we wake up.
Mateo has started chemotherapy now, and he is doing amazingly well with it all. He is one tough, resilient and joyful cookie. Even so, my heart breaks for him every time we have to go through with a session, but I have learnt that our children have the ability to push us in unimaginable ways, to dig up courage from where we didn’t even know we had it, to step up and be the people they need us to be for them. As parents we never thought we could bear such immense heartbreak, but we can do it for him, with a smile on our faces, holding him tight and singing cheerful songs to him throughout all the procedures and medications that need to be administered….
Some days are harder than others, but all the days are part of this journey we’ll be walking together as a family. All days are made up of a whole lot of love, joy and laughter, and some tears shed in-between.
I know at the end of all this, we’ll complete our long hike. In a year or so, maybe a little bit longer, the five of us will sit at the top of that mountain and we’ll look out at the great views on the other side. Then, we will also look back behind us, and see the great strength we built on the way up and how deeply we grew together as we climbed. This is for you Mateo, we will hold you tight through every single step of the way.
Thank you for reading this difficult part of our family’s story. Please go next to the wonderful artist Hollie Stokes to see her take on motherhood this month.
To learn more about Artifact Motherhood, you can follow this link. You can also see my last post for this project here.