Taylor Harris is a writer living in Virginia. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Longreads, The Cut, McSweeney’s, and other publications. Her memoir about mothering a son with an unexplainable medical condition is forthcoming from Catapult.
The past two years have solidified my view that America may never change enough for me.
Whiteness cannot give us what we need, and this is not a disappointment. This is a testimony.
Not knowing happens to all mothers, and to all of us—if we are breathing, we are without escape from things we can’t know.
What if my son, the boy who has puzzled everyone, has helped to save my life?
I’m not just advocating for a child whose challenges don’t follow a script. I’m also a black mother advocating for my black son in a room full of people who don’t look like us.
How many days had we spent asking the same questions of God or doctors? How long had we wrestled with conditions that didn’t yet exist?
This is where, for me, motherhood divided into ‘Before’ and ‘After.’
As a mother, I’ve had to ask myself: What would never getting an answer, or even no longer expecting an answer, look like?
Kids are all mystery, and mine are no different, but the unknown has especially marked my son.
“Once your children know that even one person detests their bones and breath, they know.”
