II. Procreation: From the Creator to my creators
From the New Oxford Annotated bible with Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version edited by Michael D. Coogan, Marc Z. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins
The following excerpts come from specific verses in the Bible that refer to companionship for the purpose of procreating.
Gen 1:26-28: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful an multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.”
Gen 2:18-24: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner…but for the man there was not found a helper as her partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed its place with one of his ribs ad closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
Gen 4:20: “The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living things.”
Mom – second marriage – “we both wanted kids.”
Gen 7:19-20: “And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive.”
Psalms 128:3: “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house.”
My mom was born in raised in the Midwest. I tell you this, hoping that you can get a sense of her pure genuine heart and overabundant excitement and positivity about the world. She is one of the happiest people I know, due to her outlook and perspective. Some people (me) like to describe her as “Pleasantville on crack.” Needless to say, she finds joy in every situation and is determined to spread her love throughout the world. She finds fulfillment in speaking to her five children on a daily basis and finds happiness in their happiness.
My mom was married once before she married my dad. She met her first husband when she was twenty-three and fell madly in love. He was edgy and different – definitely not someone you could bring home to meet the parents. But that’s why she fell in love with him. She was so young and almost star struck; she forgot to consider the foundation for forming a union with someone. He wasn’t a particularly nice man, as he was selfish and unsupportive. The first few years went well – we’ll call this the honeymoon stage. They had a son (my brother) and he was the light of my mom’s life. Despite not having a lot of money, my mom wanted a lot of kids, and she was prepared to commit her life to this man. Unfortunately, he did not feel the same. When my mom was twenty-five and newly married, her mom had a cerebral hemorrhage. If you ask her, she’ll tell you that this was the moment when she lost her mother. She quickly altered her new life as a wife into her new life as a caretaking daughter. All of her time –and their money –was spent taking care of my grandma. And my mom’s first husband was not happy because this was not the marriage he signed up for. Naturally, he began to seek companionship from the outside because he wasn’t receiving it from his wife. Shortly after my grandma got sick, my mom’s husband started cheating on my mom.
At first, my mom was in denial. With all of her positivity, she just figured that he needed a break and that he would for sure come back to her. But, she also couldn’t blame him for cheating on her. She wasn’t being the wife she promised to be, because during that time, she couldn’t. After a little while, they got a divorce under one condition: my mom received full custody of my brother. She wanted kids so badly, so she wasn’t going to let their broken relationship take away her son.
When my mom met my dad, she wasn’t looking for a relationship. She had just gotten divorced and was simply looking for a friend. However, she saw the way he interacted with my brother and saw what potential he had as a father. After awhile, they started dating. Because my mom wanted kids so badly, she knew not to waste anytime. When my dad was hesitant to commit, she said to him, “If you’re not willing to marry me, that’s fine. But let me know now because if you’re not, then I’m going to go find someone else.” My mom knew she was running out of time to have kids, and she knew my dad wanted kids, too. It was just a question of whether he was ready. However, with an ultimatum like that, my dad promptly asked for her hand in marriage. Shortly after, they had my sister. And four kids later, they had me. Finally, my mom and dad had what they wanted: five kids under the age of ten under one roof.
When my mom speaks about her first husband and my dad, she speaks very ambivalently. As a woman who doesn’t regret anything and firmly believes that everything happens for a reason, she doesn’t hate or despise her ex-husband. She sees him as a message. If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t have realized what the importance of being in a relationship was. On a similar note, if she had met my dad first time around, she would have never married him. She needed the edgy, attractive bad guy to realize what she really wanted in life. When she met my dad, she realized they shared the same value: they wanted to have lots of kids and raise them with a sense of Judaism and Tikun Olam (something I mentioned in the introduction of this project). When she met her first husband, she was naïve and didn’t consider her values and what was important to her. It was only with the heartbreak and clarity that she was able to find my dad – someone who shared the same core as her.
When I look at my parents, I forget that this is the reason why they’re married. They are polar opposites. My mom is bubbly and my dad is rather emotionless. But if you ask him, she saved him. He wasn’t emotionally ready to get married when they met, but she helped him grow. But then I remember that they fit so perfectly because they share the same values. They believe that they were put on this earth to meet and procreate, creating children who share similar values and a selfless understanding of the world.