Tales of a different kind of healing journey
Caribbean Life, N BQ ovember 8-14, 2019 51
“What God is Honored
Here?” edited by
Shannon Gibney and
Kao Kalia Yang
c.2019, University of
Minnesota Press
$19.95 / higher in
Canada
274 pages
Book cover of “What God is Honored Here?”
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
You’re doing okay.
Shaky, most days, and you
can’t stop crying but you’re
doing okay. Thanks for asking,
although nobody ever
really wants to know. They
look away, up or down or anywhere
but at the truth: you’ve
lost a baby but in “What God
is Honored Here?” edited by
Shannon Gibney and Kao
Kalia Yang, you’ll find sisterhood.
In long days after the loss of
their unborn babies, journalists
Gibney and Yang began a
different kind of healing journey,
looking “desperately for
answers… finding meaning in
human experience.” Alas, for
them, as non-white women, it
was lacking.
It was then that they began
researching, specifically
seeking stories from Native
women and women of color
— tales that were painful to
tell, or that the tellers had
suppressed. This book is made
from those stories.
Here are tales of women
who knew their babies were
dying; they knew about problems,
that the baby was sick,
wasn’t flourishing, wouldn’t
live; they minimized news
of birth defects. Mistakes
were made, maybe; guilt was
involved, or a doctor was particularly
uncaring. No matter;
those mothers wanted their
babies, their first or second or
seventh pregnancy that didn’t
last. Their newborn that didn’t
live.
They’re memories of an
Anishinaabeg woman, a Thai
refugee, a black woman with
white in-laws, an Asian American
woman, a wife of a Mongolian
man who didn’t speak
his language enough, each
left with empty arms, dealing
with “a tiny baby” in a
way that makes sense at the
end of something that makes
no sense at all. Each wondering
what happened, and getting
answers that left them
angry, stunned, satisfied that
it wasn’t their “fault,” or without
answers altogether.
“What God is Honored Here?” editors Kao Kalia Yang and
Shannon Gibney. Kristine Heykants
And yet — there’s hope in
this book.
Hope in the tales of the
future, and babies that will
live to hear about a missing
sibling. Hope for twins,
though there should’ve been
triplets. Hope, when one can’t
be a “creator of children” and
instead heals by creating
something else.
Without a doubt, “What
God is Honored Here?” may
be the most painful book you
read this year — not because
of what’s in it, but because of
its content.
That may seem like a contradiction,
but here: the pain
doesn’t come from the stories
and poems themselves, but
from what they say and what
they mean for women of color.
Statistics, seen in the introduction,
don’t lie. It’s what’s
told that feels like a knife.
Some of the tales are
recalled in the most emotionless
voices imaginable, with
flat words of decades-old disbelief.
Others brim with anger
tinged with guilt, and an Everest
of grief. Every now and
then, humor peeks between
lines of this book, forcing a
quick lightness before plunging
back in.
And then there’s that
hope…
For mothers who grieve,
this book is great but it’s also
for fathers, grandmas, aunties,
and friends. Just know
this: it may be cathartic to
cry through “What God is
Honored Here?’ but take it
slow. Give yourself time, and
this book’ll be more than just
okay.
Without a doubt,
“What God is
Honored Here?”
may be the most
painful book you
read this year — not
because of what’s in
it, but because of its
content.