Surrender may be the hardest lesson to learn. To say "I'm no quitter," is not just proof of your strength, but an unwillingness to accept defeat. How do we find such grace?
I think of the Bradley Method classes that lead up to E's very complicated birth. They made Lamaze training look like a wiffle ball game. Each class was more terrifying than the next, painting pictures of potential obstacles as we were told in a low and assured voice that the way to solve each hiccup was to do something fairly unimaginable. I remember that next-to-last class, and asking the teacher how we would deal with the hardest moments. The placenta was in the wrong place. We had changed doctors seven times. Ultrasounds and doulas, midwives and birthing centers had become an impossible stew, far too bitter to sip.
She stared at me.
"You just have to let go." She said. "You fall, and as you fall you know that a branch will be there to catch you, something to grab at."
Chewing the insides of my cheeks, I wrestled with this spiritual hokum. I wanted actions, concrete steps.
"You have to accept the worst." She continued. "See it, embrace it and then understand that it might not happen."
That made a little more sense to me.
At the final class we were given some tokens of our six month training, hugs and kind words, assurances that we had done all of this to avoid anything truly hairy and scary.
In reality, E's birth was a complete train wreck.
When the ultimate, terrifying life-threatening moment presented itself I surrendered, and made one of the hardest decisions I have ever been presented with. I was not prepared to make it, because I thought if I got angry enough, or spoke the hardest truth in the loudest voice, if I just held out, or if I punched far above my weight with doctors and nurses then there would be some control over nature, over ego, over old wounds and the most closely held dreams. I could not have been more wrong. In surrendering, two lives were saved.
This is our violent nature. We imagine ourselves punching through walls. We drive faster. We drink more than the next person. We make more money than the next person. We are suckers for promises of success and wealth. Just work harder. Just try harder. Just don't give up. Just do it.
Surrender may be the hardest lesson to learn.
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