Pamela M. Tsigdinos
A decade or so after realizing my diva-like, fibroid-riddled uterus would never perform, menopause offered a welcome certainty after years of endless wondering. My heart and my head, though, proved less easy to tame. That’s where writing and connecting with those in my shoes offered a haven.
Twenty years on, due to many contributing during World Childless Week, I feel embraced and validated.
That’s not to say there aren’t still challenges to overcome. I’m at an age now when some of my friends and extended family obsess over new milestones: graduations, weddings, and, for some, grandchildren. While familiar fringe-dwelling feelings can ebb and flow they are, thankfully, nowhere near as ferocious as they once were.
For example, listening to parents lament over their ‘empty nest’ can still annoy deeply. My mind all but yells:Your house may feel empty today —but it’s not like your offspring are out of your life completely. The umbrage from such an encounter, which once took hold for days, passes fairly quickly.
Other times it’s not there are all.
To wit, it was surreal to hear that a cousin’s child, conceived and delivered via IVF around the time I was undergoing treatment, was due to bring her own child into the world. Where once that information might have hit like a sledgehammer, this year I received the news with remarkable calm. I picked out cute baby clothes online and sent them off with heartfelt best wishes. I also recently spent an evening with a younger couple new to the area eagerly anticipating the birth of their first child. I came away happy that people as kind and caring as they clearly are will raise a child.
I am grateful to have progressed from the deep grief and loss such an evening would have prompted in my younger years.
More surprising still, amid chaotic climate change, disruptive disease and growing political polarization, I sometimes find myself relieved we didn’t have children. With growing demands on an already burdened planet, I take solace that we’ll leave a smaller but no less meaningful footprint.
I see among our community selfless dedication to improving conditions and participating in causes large and small. I’m inspired, for instance, by an under-resourced team working hard locally here around Lake Tahoe to preserve and protect its fragile, natural environment. The childless on the team share an altruistic– some might say ironic – goal: to ensure that generations that come after us will experience the same wonder and awe we did the first time we looked upon some of Mother Nature’s most magnificent.
May our work to grow respect and awareness on our different forms of legacy continue through the ages. Peace to all.
