Tending the Veil: A love Letter to the Mothers Who Witness

From Gaza to LA, may we lead with love and power

This is a piece I’m working on to share at the International Association of Maternal Scholarship and Action conference next week. is a love letter—a compilation of two essays I’ve written. It’s a testament to mothering in a time of dystopia, to the ways we witness, cradle, and hold the world’s grief while staying tethered to the possibility of life, love and justice.

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Sometimes, mothering is watching your child roller skate in a celestial tutu dress while simultaneously flying a dragon kite and marveling at the aliveness in her delight, the veil so far and thick and closed that all you feel is how very here she is, every cell abuzz with LIFE. You’re here, my love.

Sometimes, mothering is late-night cradling your sick child until they sleep, resting them on a pile of pillows, propped under a humidifier just so, as you whisper and coax and sing and pray, tethering them to this side of the veil. Live, my love.

Sometimes it’s sticking your whole arm through the veil’s now gaping hole to claw your child back from it, staring it down with a sheer mother’s will, commanding it to stitch itself back up into thick velvet. Stay here, my love.

Sometimes, though, mothering is wrapping up an in-between-world babe in your arms, knowing you’re tasked with the impossible task of parting the already wispy veil yourself for them to pass through as they gasp their last breaths, pulling them close to your breast and whispering, Go, my love. I’ll hold you the whole time. And staying here, in life, as they move across the veil, to death, and waiting until you’re sure they’ve soundly floated on across the veil before releasing that animal keen that only comes when a mother is on one side and a child is on the other.

Sometimes, mothering is that.

And sometimes, mothering is living through that and bringing in new life and dancing with the veil all over again and getting out of the shower one day to find your still-coughing-but-mending toddler splashing in a puddle of water that they created by dumping out the entirety of your water bottle onto your mattress for the sheer delight of feeling the water on the soles of their feet while they jump unabashedly, the mercurial veil waiting in the wings but in this moment, you live, my love.

One of the sacred tasks of mothering, then, is tending the veil at the edge of love and fear, death and life, terror and delight.

Though the work of mothering has been denigrated from its sacred place in millions of ways big and small, I wonder if we’ve ever felt it more profoundly than in this moment, as we watch people with guns—and the politicians who do nothing to stop them—rip the veil straight down the middle and snatch indiscriminately by the armful the lives of our children who we so fiercely tend to in our dance to keep them so very squarely on this side of life.

This is a love letter to the exhausted mothers, the raging mothers, the had-enough mothers who tend the veil. This is a love letter to the mothers who witness. This is a love letter to the mothers who stay awake.

To the sleepless mothers who tend the earaches and sniffles and coughs and fevers and doctors’ visits and ER visits and still bear witness from Palestine to LA. To the pregnant mothers who march, witness, rest, cry, and allow themselves the depth of their grief as they think of their pregnant sisters. To the new mothers who nurse their newborns in bed with an ache in their heart as they think of Gaza’s hungry newborns: I see you.

To the mothers going to work and packing lunches and folding laundry and filling water bottles and driving their kids and making dinners and tending paper cuts and changing diapers, all while juxtaposing the mundane with a crumbling world. I see you.

To the mothers who spend nap times making protest art. Who stack their kids’ bookshelves with picture books on liberation. Who take time to read books that connect the dots of all of our struggles. Who email their kids’ schools and organize children’s marches and write postcards in community. Who change the hummus they buy and the TV shows their kids watch to align their dollars with their values. I see you.

To the mothers talking to their kids about immigration. Reading their kids picture books about Palestine. Protesting with their kids against ICE. Marching with their kids for a free Palestine. Standing up together for women’s rights, which are workers’ rights, which are immigrant rights, which are Indigenous rights, which are Black rights, which are children’s rights, which are LGBTQIA rights, which are disability rights.

To the mothers answering their kids’ questions with empathy and compassion, making art with their kids demanding everyone exist in dignity and freedom, strapping their babies to their chest to attend the nth protest, who put their bodies on the frontline to keep others safe: I see you.

To the mothers who hold onto their faith—when all looks bleak—that the arc of this moral universe bends toward justice. Who find and share stories of the helpers with their kids and with each other. Of nonviolent civil disobedience with their kids and with each other. Who actively practice finding stories of hope and love and resistance and liberation. Who teach their kids and each other of the interconnections of all our struggles. To the mothers who find and point out the JOY in protests and marches and music and art anchored in liberation: I see you.

To the mothers who hold their tears and rage until their kids afford them a modicum of breath to weep. To the mothers on too short a fuse from witnessing too many dead children, too many grieving mothers. To the mothers whose rage unwittingly spills over. To the mothers who say they are sorry. To the mothers who make repair. To the mothers who actively practice restoring justice. To the mothers working so hard to contain the trauma from spilling over and rippling out. I see you.

To the mothers doing their best to resource themselves for the long haul. To the mothers that dance and weep and shake and laugh and gather. That dip their toes in the ocean or make angels in the snow or lie in the grass and watch the stars or plant a seed in the dirt, or play that playlist for a bedtime dance party.

To the mothers who belly laugh with friends or sip tea with a good book or go out dancing all night or get quiet in the redwoods. To the mothers who practice joy and pleasure and rest as radical acts that sustain our collective work: I see you.

To the mothers who more acutely feel the weight of the oppressive systems and still choose to bear the world’s grief unflinching and wide awake, as men with weapons and egos level this world and its people asunder for profit.

To the sacred mothers that plant their feet firmly, stare hate in the eye, and roar a guttural no. To the mothers that know in our bones that a world is possible in which every being is treated with dignity for the sacred life they are. To the mothers, who with every action, big and small, are birthing a more beautiful world into existence: I see you

Weary mothers, I see you. Our sacred work is not done. We are needed now more than ever. May we find each other. May we continue to link our arms and our hearts. May we commit to our collective waking up. May we recognize our moral imperative on this path of co-liberation. May we organize ourselves into an unmistakably collective roar that brings the hemorrhage to a halt.

May we lead with our love. May we lead with love. May we lead with love.

And to all the mothers suffering under the hands of our government—from Gaza to LA—I see you. I see you. I see you.

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I offer 1:1 relational coaching and narrative consulting. For organizations, you can check out my offerings at attunedadvising.com. For mothers, co-parents, diaspora folks, and families looking for relational support, check out folkweaver.com and reach out to schedule a time to chat!