My Mother’s Chair

1982 Lansing, Michigan. Mom on her rocking chair with my brother and me.

My mother was right.

She said I would spend hours on this rocking chair. 

It was 2012, and I was pregnant with my first baby. My mother and I shopped all over Cleveland, searching every baby store for a nursery chair. She told me I would spend hours rocking, cuddling, and breastfeeding my newborn. My daughter and I would grow up in this chair. I couldn’t wait to snuggle my baby, rocking her to peaceful slumber. 

1982 Mom and me

So when we found a light brown chair that felt like sitting in the lap of a velvet teddy bear, we knew this would become the cacoon for my daughter and me. It had a sweet white trim and reclined for nighttime feeds. It was absolutely perfect. Without hesitation at the pricetag, my mother laid down the money for this chair of promise. My mother’s chair became the centerpiece of our nursery. 

When we brought our first daughter home, I couldn’t wait to share the chair with her. But my storybook romance of baby cuddles was quickly shattered. My daughter was not sleeping like a newborn. Instead, she screamed whenever she was in my arms. My daughter didn’t want to be in that chair with me. Whenever we were together on that chair, there was a war. A war between me versus breast-feeding, reflux, and colic. Her sensory system was unable to be soothed. There was no sitting in our nursery with my precious baby, only pacing and bouncing for the first two years of her life.

Years of medical training could have prepared me to be the mother of a special needs baby. I had no idea how much I would struggle on that chair and how many tears I would cry, wondering if I was ever gonna make it. I was experiencing a postpartum trauma - feeling trapped in a war zone that had no end and no hope. My faith became my lifeline in these dark days. Desperate prayers for rescue came from this chair. I needed Jesus in a new way as I was purged of my self-reliance and became dependent on Him to provide for my newborn.

My mother warred this experience with me. She didn’t know how to help me. As I rocked on this chair, she brought me snacks and fed me while I fed my baby. This wasn’t the experience she expected as a grandmother either. It hurt to see her daughter struggling so much with her baby. 

I was told this “irritability” would be one year of reflux and that my daughter would outgrow it. But as the hypotonia set in and she did not develop like the other babies her age, I wept on this chair. 

After we were given her diagnosis, the chair stopped rocking. No one sat in the chair for years. It was a reminder of pain and feeling helpless. The chair sat silent in the corner of my daughter’s room. Because no amount of rocking was going to make this better for my daughter. The chair became a laundry basket for unused blankets, papers, and books. As the years passed, we learned how to survive with little sleep. We learned how to embrace disability. We learned how to trust God with our story. 

My mother passed away in 2020 from cancer. I grieved losing my mother, but I also grieved for my daughter. Her Mimi was her steadfast advocate, focused on what she could do rather than what she could not do.  My mother always knew my daughter was a gift from God. Losing my mother felt like I was losing a cheerleader for both of us.

2013 Cleveland, Ohio. Mimi was my daughter’s steadfast advocate.

When I got pregnant again in 2024, there were so many new fears. My mother was no longer with me to cheer me on. I was an older mother with a high risk pregnancy and the stakes were higher. I also feared being trapped again in a nursery with another baby that I could not help. As we pieced together a new nursery for our son, we had to face whether or not to resurrect my mother’s chair. It matched the decor, but held both the memories of so many broken dreams and the loss of my precious mother. 

Could I sit in this chair again without feeling the sadness that weighed so heavily? 

Thankfully, when we brought my son home, everything felt very different. He sat with me in this chair and his body relaxed. He could eat. He could be soothed. And to my surprise, in the middle of the sleep-deprived nights, I heard my mother. 

My mother‘s heart was in that chair. And as I rocked my baby to sleep, she rocked me. Every time I sat on it, I heard her voice. I heard her advice, telling me to burp my son, to make sure he didn’t get cold. She told me of her favorite position to hold him with his head nestled under my chin. Her Ching-lish would remind me of how much patience it took to breastfeed a baby but also how worthwhile it was. I heard her telling me to rest more and to keep myself warm. I heard her say, “Now you know how I felt when I rocked you.” She had always spoken of the time in her life when she had enjoyed me as a newborn and how much she enjoyed rocking me for hours. In these sleepless nights, she was more present with me than ever before. 

And for the first time on this chair, I was crying tears of joy rather than tears of sadness. On a rocking chair where I had experienced postpartum trauma, God was giving me new memories to redeem the other ones. The chair had not changed, but I had changed. Gone was the young, disillusioned mother. In her place was an older, wiser mother who had experienced grief and loss. 

How do we heal from our traumatic experiences? The natural instinct is to bury it and run away. But sometimes we need to go back to the same place where the traumatic experiences occurred but with a different lens. Sometimes if another layer of life covers the previous experiences, we can finally heal. The good memories seep into the bad ones like a watercolor blending together, as new colors cover the gray monotone. And the painful memories become less sharp because there are newer memories to redeem them. 

How do we find sweetness even in our grief? When we lose someone we love, going back to the beloved places we shared with them helps the relationship continue to grow even after they are gone. As life continues, their words of wisdom return to us in unexpected ways. Their memories live on and help us mature in new ways. 

My mother’s chair provided this place for me. I needed to go backwards to move forwards. But now this chair’s story has been rewritten. It is treasured in a richer way than ever before. 

Only God can redeem something that had been so broken and restore it to a rich beauty. Isaiah 43:19 says, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” He provides a way through the wilderness. Not always a way out of the wilderness, but a way through it. 

My newborn is now six weeks and is more fussy. I am still sleep-walking in a newborn wilderness. But now I see “the way through it” in ways I couldn’t the first time. I know I can’t fix everything for my son and it’s okay. I know that God will take care of my son and this motherhood experience is not about me.  I know God will give me the daily strength hour by hour and it will be enough. This time I can laugh as I spend hours rocking on my mother’s chair on sleepless nights.

My mother is (still) right.

She was right about all of the hours I would spend on this chair with my babies. But what we didn’t know was how this chair would connect us when she was gone. What we didn’t know was how God would use a rocking chair to teach me more about myself than I could have ever imagined. And then how He would continue to hold me even when my mom was no longer present in this world. 

So mom - don’t worry, I’m doing okay! I miss you and I love you always! Your grandbabies are “ho bo bui” (very precious) and you would be so proud of them! And your daughter is continuing to rock on!

New Baby and Me!

My second daughter sings “Even When I’m Not” from “The Wild Robot.”