Mississippi Mother

On becoming—and being—a mom in Mississippi

Last Thursday around 10:30 p.m. an emergency weather alert blared from my phone; moments later the tornado sirens sounded in the distance. Thunder rumbled ominously from the southwest, the wind picked up, and I could hear our roof being pelted with sticks and branches shaken loose from the giant oak tree above our house. Rain came in sheets, lightning flashed. I opened the front door and watched our street turn into a seething river. Our neighbor’s sycamore thrashed wildly in the wind. This wasn’t a tornado, but it felt like the prelude to one. My dog and I were the only ones awake—LaQuenza was out of town for work and Ava was asleep in her crib, the white noise machine drowning out the clatter of the storm. 

Take shelter! the emergency alert shouted. Our house is small. There are no windowless rooms, so the safest place in a tornado is the central hallway. I closed all the bedroom and bathroom doors, then slowly scooped Ava out of her crib, praying she wouldn’t wake. Her eyes flickered and her limbs tensed, but as I settled onto the hallway floor, she relaxed back into a deep sleep. I cradled her body and watched her peaceful face, her rounded cheeks and long, curled eyelashes.

I imagined the oak tree uprooted, as I had seen other trees uprooted in the aftermath of other storms. Its root ball would be taller than our house. Perhaps, if it fell, it would fall toward the street and narrowly miss our house. Or perhaps it would crush the roof, the whole house, central hallway included. If a tornado touched down, the windows would shatter, the concrete walls would crumble in an instant. I pictured cinder blocks, stone, water, plaster, wood. What maternal protection could I offer my child against the destructive power of a storm? I was not even wearing socks. The only flashlight I had managed to grab was a plastic Lovevery toy. If the worst happened, my presence would matter very little, and yet, my presence in that moment was all that mattered. 

The day before, news of Israel’s invasion into Rafah had flooded my phone, and I thought of the mothers there holding their children in the dark, offering their own meager and vital protection against terror and displacement. And what of all the motherless children—upwards of 17,000 by some estimates—in Gaza? Who will hold all these children, children without white noise machines to lull them to sleep? I held my own child closer as the wind whistled.

My arms ached, and I was grateful for that ache, grateful for the sturdy walls of our humble house, grateful for the strong oak that, so far, had held fast. We sat like that for only twenty minutes or so—Ava cradled in my arms, Champ curled up next to us on the floor—until the storm subsided. The sounds of thunder grew fainter. The rain slowed to a steady patter, and the whole house breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

My own experience of motherhood is bound up in my experience of place, of Mississippi. Those early, sleepless days of new motherhood are still dreamily vivid—the chill of indoor air conditioning in July and the oppressive heat of summer, sweat dripping down my spine as I walked slowly, dutifully, down our street, hobbled by my fresh C-section scar. I remember the friends who stopped by with Newk’s takeout salads and slices of watermelon and Aladdin’s falafel plates. The Delta variant of COVID was rampant then, and I was wary of maskless people around my baby. I felt porous and exhausted, overwhelmed by hormones and fear and awe.

Ava has grown up with the magnolias and pines and oaks of Mississippi, the green of this place, vowels extended into two syllables, the chorus of cicadas and the barking of neighborhood dogs, dusty yellow clouds of spring pollen, and windows fogged with condensation when the summer humidity nears 100%. My child has experienced more storm-induced power outages than I did in the whole of my childhood. She’s grown up with Mississippi’s tornado warnings the way I grew up with Colorado’s snow storms. 

At some point, every parent goes through the bewildering realization that their child is growing up with their own set of cultural references, language, and understanding of the world. As Ava becomes more of an autonomous human with increasingly complex thoughts and language, I begin to see how much of her is shaped by Mississippi and the fact that she is a Mississippian. I wonder, too, how much my experience of motherhood is shaped by my experience as a Mississippi transplant.

But motherhood itself is so complicated, so bound up in contradictions. My motherhood is specific to me, to my corner of Jackson, Mississippi, USA. My motherhood is universal. My motherhood is constrictive. My motherhood is freeing. My motherhood energizes and exhausts me. It is too much and never enough. It tastes like sweetness and sorrow. My motherhood is severe thunderstorms and cloudless, sunny days. It is joyous grief. 

The day after the storm, many people in Jackson and the metro area were left without power. (Luckily, we never lost power.) Many trees had fallen in the storm, crushing cars and caving in roofs and blocking roads. Telephone poles were cracked in half. A boil water notice was issued because the water treatment plant had lost power. But the sun was shining and the air was cool. Ava woke up and called for me from her crib.

“Did you hear the storm last night?” I asked. 

“No,” she said.

“Do you remember Mommy holding you in the hallway?”

She paused thoughtfully. “I want pancakes.”

And with that, a new day had begun.

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Lauren Rhoades is a Mississippi transplant, pro-choice mom, and Eudora Welty fangirl. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Rooted Magazine.

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