Eulogies are acts of remembrance. And while you may not be gone, at least not yet, I’ve finally stopped being ashamed of you long enough, to honor you in the way you deserve to have been – our whole life together.
A good eulogy should say all the pretty things…
Thank you.
You mattered.
You grew, supported, and sustained three of the most beautiful souls to grace the planet! For that alone – you deserve to be memorialized in gold!
But, imo, a good eulogy shouldn’t pretend there was never any suffering.
It should tell the whole story: the beauty and the grief. The love and the wounds. The beautiful babies and the tragic miscarriages. It shouldn’t skip the complicated parts just because they’re messy.
And let me tell you, they were messy!
I got my first period during the first week of freshman year in high school. Super.
It wasn’t long before I needed to take extra clothes with me to school – a couple times a month – because I’d already bled through mine before third period. At fourteen years old, there are very few things more humiliating than that.
That became my normal. Not just the heavy bleeding, but the shame.
My periods aren’t just heavy. I’ve been doubling up on Supers and Overnights every hour to make it through the first few days of my 7-9 day cycle – for as long as I can remember.
I learned how to smile while pretending I wasn’t flooding. I learned how to whisper the word period and used code words instead.I even learned how to hide the products I would need in the bottom of the shopping cart. I tried to make my body as invisible as possible.
No one ever sat me down directly and said, “You should be ashamed.” No one had to. Shame is rarely taught in one lesson. It’s woven. Thread by thread. Until one day, when you wake up and realize you have braided shame in with being a woman.
Even as a mother of young sons, I rarely said the word period out loud in my own home. Not because my family expected me to whisper. Because I silenced myself. Somewhere along the way, I took the shame and stifled my own voice.
Pain and cramps aren’t just something that visit me once a month. It’s become the background music of my life. I’ve had more surgeries than I care to recall – my first laparoscopy at 13 – with my first ovarian cysts diagnosis. ER visits with many ultrasounds – and not just the basic variety either. Oh & the waiting rooms! Ugh- the waiting rooms – don’t even get me started on those!
I learned the language of endometriosis & adenomyosis long before I ever heard the whispers of reverence.
Now, after decades of surgeries, bleeding, pain, and more-than-my-fair-share of traumatic medical appointments, I’m facing a decision I thought I’d be a lot happier to make. I’m facing a hysterectomy and I wasn’t expecting the grief.
As the world is standing on the threshold of honoring the feminine in a new way – I’m standing on a precipice I never expected. Because, just as I’m beginning to understand this part of myself as sacred, I am being asked to say goodbye.
And it’s taken me a couple of days to understand this decision isn’t asking me to choose between my uterus and my femininity. It’s asking something of me much deeper…
Why do I feel like I have to suffer to be a woman?
What if, sometimes, the most feminine thing we can do, is reclaim our relationship with our own bodies? What if, sometimes, the most feminine thing we can do is finally free our voice?
I don’t know the answers yet, I’m still listening. But I do know this: I have spent decades trying to survive this part of myself that I have only just begun to understand – as sacred.
All these years, I wasn’t only carrying physical pain, but deep, deep shame. Somewhere along the way, I learned that this part of myself was something to hide.
But my womb has never been silent.
I was.
Muzzled by shame.
And so… before whatever happens next… I simply want to say…
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
Without shame.
But with deep pride and a public apology.
You have my immense gratitude, much love, & mad respect!!
~Amanda ©06/26