some people say
they just want their children to be happy

not me
I don’t understand that
to want a child to be happy
fixed in amber
with one emotion

I want my children
to feel what they feel
to feel happy, unhappy, sad, angry
gloomy, ecstatic, joyous, jealous
snarky, sarcastic, silly, relaxed
to feel the full gamut
the full rainbow
of emotions

In my mother’s family
they pack their sorrows in their saddlebags
and ride forth singing

the trouble is
the saddlebags get heavier over time
weighted with grief and fear and anger
or whatever is unacceptable
to the family
until the horse staggers under the weight
falls over
dead

then they must try to drag the saddlebags
too heavy for the horse
through their lives

I am gifted my mother’s letters
when my mother is in the hospital
the tuberculosis sanatorium
the first letter a month
after I am born

My mother is cheerful in the letters
a little snarky about her roommate
a little lonely

But what stands out is what’s missing
She barely mentions me
in some letters not at all
her first baby
who misses her
and who she can only see outside
through a window

And what was in her saddlebags?
When she coughed blood 22 years old
and eight months pregnant
she thinks she has lung cancer
and will die

She says this without emotion
lightly
almost as a joke
a relief when it was tuberculosis
even though that meant six months
in the sanatorium
separate from her young husband
and baby
at least she was not dying

She doesn’t get to hold me again
until I am nine months
and I have no idea who she is.

The worst thing anyone can tell me
is that I should not feel the way I feel.

I shut down.
I don’t stop feeling how I feel
but that person is locked out.
I will not trust them with my feelings
for a long time
I am an expert at hiding my feelings
raised in an emotionally dangerous
household
and physician training as well.

Once on the boat
my daughter says, “Mom, I’m scared.”
My father says, “Don’t be scared or go below.”
“No.” I say, “Come here. What are you scared about?”
We have run aground.
Too impatient to wait for the tide
we are trying to winch ourselves off.
“I am scared we are trapped.” says my daughter.
“How far is shore?” I say.
We are in the marina.
“Not far.” she says.
“Could we get to shore?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still scared?”
“No.”
Soon a rowboat comes and takes the kids
to shore to play.

“Don’t be scared or go below.”
That was my childhood.
Emotions as monsters.
I went below.
I chose to make friends with the monsters.
I feel what I feel.
One friend says, “Of anyone I know,
you process your feelings in real time.”
and I laugh, but am honored,
because it took years
to reach this.

Don’t share your feelings with fools.
Don’t share your feelings with people
who want you a certain way,
or who try to control you.
You have a right to your feelings
as they are.

And this is what I want for my children.

The photograph is my mother and me in March 1963. I do not know who took it, perhaps my father. I would have been right around 2 years old and my mother was 24. I did not see these photographs from when I was first back with my parents until after they both died.