Language as lifeline

“You are doing an amazing job!”

The sentence echoed on an empty, sleepy street that smelled like wet asphalt, my heart up in my throat. I was apologizing over and over to my infant daughter, whose tears had mixed with the little shine of snot under her button nose.

As a new mother, walking to the park five minutes from our house felt like an act of profound bravery. Some days I came home refreshed and even a little proud. Other days I crossed the threshold of our house, a husk of the woman who had left with the stroller.

The day our neighbor yelled, was one of the latter.

I had set out for a neighborhood stroll with my daughter. On the way back she decided she had other plans. The stroller was suddenly a place of torture and I, apparently, its gatekeeper. As we turned onto our street, she began to kick and scream like the world was ending. I parked the stroller to pick her up, but the straps turned into Fort Knox. My fumbling made me frantic. Her cries rose into a full siren, the kind you can feel two blocks away.

I knew it was normal. Babies cry. All. Of. The. Time. I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong. My mind kept pointing to that logic, but my body and my heart do not speak logic. They did what they do best and flooded my nervous system with the feeling of being chased by a lion. When you are hunted by the king of beasts, you beg for mercy. That is exactly what I did, in the middle of the street, tears jumping to my eyes while I whispered, I am sorry, I am so sorry, to my baby and maybe to the entire world.

At last I freed the buckle, hoisted her onto my hip, and with the other hand pushed the stroller. My legs felt like bags of sand. My heart felt pressed into a small lump of coal by anxiety and shame.

That is when I heard it.

“HEY!”

It came from behind a screened window. Too dark to see the face behind the mesh. I shrank, ready to apologize and make myself scarce, certain I was about to be scolded.

Then the voice continued, surprisingly warm and huge.

“YOU ARE DOING AN AMAZING JOB!”

Some stranger had stopped whatever they were doing to offer words like a rope thrown toward a drowning swimmer. I doubt they knew that is what they were doing.

As the meaning reached my foggy postpartum brain, relief washed over me. I could breathe again. I was not drowning. I was allowed to take up space on that rain-smelling street. I was, in fact, doing an amazing job by being there for my daughter, protecting her, keeping her safe. Being a mother.

Living as an immigrant comes with many challenges, but moments like this make me fall in love with this country and its people all over again. The lack of hesitation in using words to lift someone, with force and with kindness. The choice to speak up.

I can only hope that one day my words land the way that shout did. Until then I will use my voice to offer kindness and recognition, to fuel courage or soften a hard day. That is, I think, the real value of this complex system we build and rebuild every time we open our mouths. Language as a tool. Language as a lifeline.

Written by SAKURACO