I Almost Killed Him

I almost killed him. My son Daniel, three months old, was hanging from my body on a Bjorn, facing a pack of tourists while we walked the streets of New Orleans, when I fell face forward. It was the last day of a literary conference I was attending. I was ready to go home. We had gone for a walk to have beignêts at Café Du Monde and to see the Mississippi River. We were walking back to the hotel to gather our things. Daniel was hanging off my chest, his legs kicked in the air, his squeals responding to the noisy New Orleans’ morning. I was also carrying a heavy backpack filled with Daniel’s necessities on my back and a gift bag in each hand full of chicory coffee to take back home.

“Can I carry something for you?” My friend Emily offered.

“No, It’s okay” I replied.

I was sure I could manage. Besides, after four days at the Callaloo retreat/conference, I was going home.

“I just can’t wait to put Daniel down in his crib,” I confessed to Emily. His crib is one of the few places where I could leave him and then sit, relax and write, or shower, nap or finish reading a book.

I fell forward and imagined Daniel’s head split open, my full body weight on him. A group of tourist encircled us, their faces filled with horror. I tripped on one of those water hole lids on an uneven sidewalk, the same sidewalk I thought of as charming when I first arrived.

“Is there blood?” I asked my girlfriends, the tourists, who surrounded me. He cried. I cried. There was dust on his lips. No blood. He cried because he was startled or because I was crying. I cried because for a split second I thought that my fall had killed him. Somehow I managed to turn on my side and save him from getting hurt. I broke the fall with my knees. I pulled him out of the Bjorn and carried him close to my chest all the way back to the hotel. I’m so sorry, I said repeatedly to him and even to myself. I fell down because I was exhausted. Why hadn’t I asked someone to carry my backpack when they offered to help? Why did I pretend that I could keep up the pace with everyone else? The women around me had offered their hearts and arms during the conference. Why did I resist their help?

When I decided to have Daniel, I was determined to be the kind of mother who would have my son accompany me to lectures, conferences, to research in the archives. A mother who would create space in her life for her creativity and productivity and he, my son, would be proud of me for it; the kind of mother who would say intelligent things, and engage in a dynamic way, despite the sleepless nights, my aching back from carrying him, despite my leaky breasts from feeding him, despite the rumor or is it fact that I apparently had one third less of my brain to work with while breastfeeding. I was determined to walk on New Orleans’ uneven sidewalks, cracked from age, keeping pace with other conference participants, remembering the other mothers… the women I witnessed before I became a mother, who lectured at conferences with their babies strapped on their bodies; mothers who told stories about writing and finishing their books between feedings in the dark hours of the night. Women who became stronger after the birth of their children, more productive, better writers, no bullshit kind of women. While I was pregnant many mothers assured me and told me repeatedly that once you have a child there is literally no time to waste so they became more productive, more efficient, as I will become more productive, more efficient with my time. I was told that once you’re a mother you do what you have to do without excuses. Many women rubbed my large belly with confidence that it could all get...