The Weight

There is so much noise, so much racket in the world. We are assaulted by the sounds, the sights, the smells. Someone is always pushing, always pulling, always needing something from us. Do you feel this way, too? Recently, there has been much debate over what defines a woman. Oddly polarizing this commentary has become. Some groups stake their claim on the hill of biology. Their battle cry is a rousing “God does not make mistakes.” Others attack with a cacophony of righteous statements like, “God does not get to decide what I am or am not.” While I side with the former, my condensed disquisition pivots on a single mantra. It is based on the things we carry, we women of this world. God especially equipped us with this gift that cannot be replicated or faked or hidden or pushed into oblivion. We carry. Period with a “T.”

I was on the phone with my son last night. He’s away, attending a work-related study program that he is trying to turn into a massive success, though the process is proving to be extremely difficult. We were doing that amazing thing called face timing. He looked at me with the same dark eyes that stared up at me for the first time on a hot summer night in 1989, the ones that melted his heart into my own as only the birth experience does, and said, “Mom, you really didn’t do me any favors by helping so much with my schoolwork when I was younger. I’m having trouble with this class because I never learned to study properly. You did too much. Now it’s on me and it’s hard.” I deserve a medal for my reaction to this statement made from thorns and rusty nails and barbed wire, cutting into my very heart with its soul-crushing sadness. My brain was screaming awful things like “that’s how you treat your mother?” The statement “oh yeah, well you wouldn’t be struggling right now if I hadn’t HELPED you because you would never have qualified for things like graduation, your current job, or this difficult class,” also crossed my mind. Instead, I stared into those precious eyes and said, “It is as hard to watch you struggle at this moment as it was all those years ago. I carry your pain, son. That is all I can say.” Thus, a column was born as I tossed and turned the night away thinking of all the other things women carry.

The female member of any species, chromosomally speaking, is responsible for lineage. We carry the culpability of disaster that creation bestowed upon us. If we don’t take care of ourselves during gestation, it seems to us that the entire species could die. If we allow a predator access to our young, the entire species could die. If we don’t provide nourishing food, if we don’t give of our very bodies, if we don’t hunt fast enough or teach enough lessons or fall asleep on guard or allow ourselves to become injured along the way…we risk losing it all. We shoulder the entirety of humanity, all day, every day. I see it in feral cats. I see it in human families, too. While men are incredibly valued and important for monumental reasons, never discount the carrying power of a woman.

But the things we carry don’t stop there. We carry dreams. Whether our own, the dreams of all nations, or the dreams of our children, it is on us to foster a yearning for tomorrow and the blessings that will surely bring. We carry the weight of opinions. There is a villain around every corner, ready to wound us with knowledge of all the things we aren’t doing well enough, fast enough, or to a desired standard. We carry tethers. Were it not for cautious women, everyone would be holding onto helium balloons, floating ever so close to the surface of the sun. Though we are often accused of ruining fun, we are merely tethering your heart to the good, earthly soil. We carry empathy. Beyond who is right and who is wrong, we discern who is suffering. We carry anticipatory grief. We know the joy that exists in bringing forth life, whether that is a miracle meant for us or just for the other women we love. We learn the horror that envelops those who usher life out. These things exist in an invisible backpack women wear every moment of the day. It is with us when we sleep. It is with us as we work out, cook dinner, go to our jobs, and take baths at night. It was placed onto us by God as we were born. We will carry it back to Him one day.

That is my definition of a woman, this list of often unwanted yet treasured attributes we are allowed to bestow little by little, like petals from a flower girl on a June afternoon, sprinkled onto the dark paths of a cruel world. I am honored to carry these things. I am a woman.