Breast of Times
This post is in honor of my Breast Friend, Sue Richards, of Calendar Girl for all her dedicated work and hard-fought battles to promote breast health to men and women everywhere. I made a vow as a Breast Ambassador to spread the gospel of breast health, so please click on over to her blog and buy a lovely Breast of Canada Calendar for as many people as you can think to endow with this gorgeous and informative gift. Thank you.
Up until my youngest brother pushed his way into our already-crowded house of six girls plus two parents, I hadn't taken much notice of the difference between my chest and my mother's--or even my oldest sisters' developing bosoms. In fact, at a mere five years of age I assumed the matching bulges that filled my mother's dresses were God's way of gifting warm pillows to sleepy heads as they nodded off on soft laps.
This all changed the day my grandmother stood over our kitchen table sprinkling starch-water on white sheets and pillow cases while my mom rocked D in her arms. To my utter amazement, she unbuttoned her blouse and pulled the swaddled lump that was my baby brother against her bare chest. I watched in awe as D latched onto her nipple like a Kindergarten painting onto a fridge door and suckled for all his 13-pound worth (yes, that was his birth weight!). My mother and grandmother continued chatting as if neither considered the fat-cheeked new person gumming my mother's breast to his heart's content, was worthy of wide-eyed staring.
Dumbfounded by the extraordinary event taking place in our kitchen, I moved closer to my mother in an attempt to get a better look, but the edge of her blouse concealed both her boob and my brother's face. Undaunted, I planted myself in the adjacent chair, then matter-of-factly reclined until my head was in my mother's lap, under the arm that supported the slurping baby where I had a dead-on view of this most curious happening. Sure as Sunday, D was sucking on the end of my mother's breast, and as if that weren't impressive enough, my mother suddenly pulled the nipple out of his mouth and flopped him over her shoulder, leaving the pendulous pillow dangling above my face where I-shit-you-not warm, bluish-white fluid sprayed my face.
I jumped to my feet and wiped my cheek with my sleeve as my grandmother cackled in the memorable way that is forever etched into my bones.
"Whatsa matter, Ellie? You want some?"
I shook my head furiously.
"Sure you do. Give her a taste, Aussie." That laugh again.
I felt a warm heat travel up my neck and over my face. In a moment more surreal than I'd yet to experience, my mother pulled me closer and placed my small hand on her bare breast.
"There's milk inside. It's how D gets his food. Same way you and all your sisters were fed."
Still recovering from the blasphemy of bodily fluids that had just coated my face, I was now completely blown away by all this new information, along with the sensory input of my mother's breast under my palm.
As if sensing my thoughts, my mother smiled. "Go ahead," she said. "Squeeze."
I looked down at the hand that no longer registered as part of my own body and curled my fingers around her flesh. Milk bubbled out from the big brown nipple and onto my mother's aproned knee. I remember thinking this was the warmest, softest thing I'd ever touched in my life.
My brother belted a burp that broke the suspended silence.
"Atta boy!" my grandmother said. "Let that air go, it ain't payin' rent."
My mother tucked her breast back into her blouse and dropped the other before shifting my brother to the opposite side while her mother moved a basket of damp linens to the mangle in the corner of the kitchen. I left a room filled with hissing and suckling and my mother's low hum changed by the extraordinary events I'd just witnessed. As I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, I carried with me a new understanding of how much my mother loved us, and her mother, her.
That night I lay in bed with my hand on my smooth chest not yet knowing the magic I would experience upon nursing my own three children, nor the words a lover would one day whisper upon first caress of my nubile young breasts.
These are the warmest, softest things I've ever touched in my life...
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Photo by Lauren Cruickshank for 2007 Breast of Canada Calendar
