JOCHEBED AND LUCY: STORIES OF ADOPTION AND MOTHER LOVE Part 1

Below is Part 1 of a 2-Part conversation between Lucy, a contemporary woman, and Jochebed, a woman from the Bible’s Old Testament. Both women “lost” infants they “gave up” for “adoption” due to the exceptional circumstances of their lives. Lucy’s story is based on a true story of a mother releasing her son for adoption.

As Lucy strolled along the river’s edge, head down, pondering the birth of her six-year-old son and his placement for adoption three days after his birth, she came upon a teary-eyed woman sitting on the riverbank.

Her peaceful expression belied the sorrow told by the tears washing her cheeks.

Lucy knelt beside the woman, rose on her heels and slowly, solemnly, stretched her arms towards her.

A soul-depth communication transpired between the women as one of the woman’s calloused, wrinkled hands reached for Lucy’s smoother extended hand. Lucy responded by wrapping an arm around her thin shoulder. Both seemed empowered by the water flowing by them.

Lucy softly broke into their reverie. “I knew you’d be here, Jochebed.”

“I come here often. The water…comforts me…it was the safest place to put Moses…it…it was a fate better than certain death.”

“Knowing your story gave me a permission slip to let Robert go,” Lucy said. “Your story inspired and guided me. You let Moses go and God didn’t strike you dead. I felt if He had compassion for you, perhaps he’d have compassion for me.”

Lucy told Jochebed about the short bedside service her pastor lead just before she relinquished Robert to the adoption agency director, when he retold her the story about Moses he’d shared with her during her pregnancy.

“It wasn’t a bedspread I laid my baby on, but a river with reeds,” Lucy said. “I too placed my son in the water, throwing him back into God’s breath, back into the universe. It seemed the safest place for him.”

“Tell me about it,” Jochebed urged.

“I was scared I’d hurt him,” Lucy began. “I didn’t want to teach Robert the wrong thing, to raise him to fit into my father’s…my brother’s…my ex-husband’s…violent mold. I couldn’t raise him because I didn’t have any good medicine to give him. All I had was fear.”

Lucy paused before quietly continuing. She’d been molested at the hands of her father and others before she was old enough to attend school. And Robert was conceived during a rape episode.

“Had he been Roberta, I would have raised her with two-year-old Amy. But I didn’t want to touch one of those things.” Her body shook uncontrollably. “It grossed me out.”

The anger’s---no, the rage’s---depth reached deep into the creases of her soul. The very thought of dealing with a male child sent her into spasms of fear, even now.

“The sexual abuse left my bones like shattered glass---the shards of glass grinding together with each movement become unbearable pain---yet I have to keep walking, because that’s what it’s like being a mom.”