Assistant Editor Toni Judnitch: “Origins” by Kelly Fig Smith weaves together issues of identity, history, and the body to form a complicated and compelling picture of family and motherhood. This hybrid work complicates the themes further by fearlessly addressing the place of grief and yearning during the process of adoption.
To listen to Kelly read her piece, click here:
Origins
We didn’t share a body, my son and I—were not connected at the root—so he longs for her, his first home. For the one who gave him life but could not sustain it. Or bear to watch as he faded away to all ribs and paper skin . . . so then
a plane ride. Another country.
And I wonder, he says, if she misses-me-thinks-of-me-is-even alive. Do you think she’s alive? And would touching her mend it, skin upon skin, the two of them, pressed together?
Mothers are lifegivers, caregivers, creators. And there are still invisible strings that link you and me, we who once shared a body and were connected at the root.
A stricture, they said, at the umbilical: an extreme narrowing, through which not enough could pass—nutrition—so he starved, they suppose. Easier to imagine: left, disappeared, poof, on a whim. Proof that babies sometimes leave of their own accord.
An accord, an agreement between you and me—part of God’s plan—and I wonder if mothers who leave, if they plan or if it’s more sudden. If I could do it too, on a whim, in a flurry, sometimes I worry I could
disappear.
Paper pregnant they called it—still organic and natural—pregnant with the pulp of hardwoods and softwoods: with ash and with birch, with social workers and with pine. And he longs for her as I do for You, Creator, Father, Mother, my connection at the root, at the umbilical site. Sight, I think, would help mend it, this separation. The pressing of our skins, together again. Home.
Kelly Fig Smith’s work has appeared in publications such as The Rumpus, Under the Gum Tree, and Hippocampus, among others. She received the best essay prize for Creative Nonfiction magazine’s Issue #55 and was shortlisted for The Pinch‘s Nonfiction Prize. She’s currently seeking representation for her first book, a collection of essays.
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