01 Mar Boldly Loving my Body
Breasts. The word alone catches your eye (yes, pun intended). The love, hate, resentment, and finally finding peace for my breasts has been a tumultuous relationship.
Daadi, Napo, Umme, Chotee, and Bhari huddled around me in the kitchen of our home in Chicago. Straight away, with bowed heads as if in mourning, someone handed me a stark white item, with what looked like straps on a harness.
“It’s time…you’re showing yourself…we all wear one…modesty…decency,” all the voices intermixed, none above a whisper, using what my elementary teachers referred to at school as our “library voice”.
Before I could ask any questions, I was shoved into a bathroom with Napo or Umme, with the white garment in hand.
“Show her,” was the last phrase I heard before entering womanhood. At 10 years old, I had buds – the precursor to breasts. In hindsight it was no wonder that I developed at a young age because Umme was buxom, so through the magic of DNA the probability was high. I was instructed to wear the training bra at all times, especially when male relatives were present, and if bearable at night as well because “you never know when we’ll have to get up and leave.” (We got up and left Pakistan so migration at all hours of the day or night became part of our family storyline.)
The device cut against the skin on my shoulders and across my ribcage, felt like a weight pushing on my chest, was a foreigner on my body, and yet I did as I was told: wore it 24 hours a day. Daada nor any other male treated me any differently but the women: they chatted about the beginning of something, the ending of childhood, the prospect of the next phase of my life, and the utter shame of it all. Darkness shrouded this device that they – my women elders – forced me to wear and proceeded to look upon me with disdain.
Coming of age in a conservative home with no access to answers on what was going on with my body, the absence of open discussions regarding puberty or the ups and downs of being a teenager, and the overall sense of being okay with my body was not part of my upbringing. Certain topics were confined in a trunk, locked up, and dropped into the abyss of the ocean. Ironically, my family valued education but sexual learning and understanding had no business in our home, therefore I felt powerless over my own body and what it was going through. I was illiterate when it came to myself.
My body blossomed and blossomed and blossomed. I tried to mash my breasts into smaller bra sizes, sports bras, and whatever I could get my hands on to secure the girls into place, but they were not going to be forced into anything and become immobile. During high school, when hormones are bouncing around campus, ricocheting from one human form to another, it was my job to keep my breasts in check, not allowing them to call attention to me. The binding of bras, oversized t-shirts, flannels which I borrowed from Puppa (thank God for the grunge look), sweatshirts, and any schlumpy garment I could get my hands on were used as camouflage on my 5’3” frame sporting double C’s.
Less than a decade later, Damon and I met his parents at the halfway point between Redlands and Los Angeles, where my future in-laws lived. We were in the middle of planning our wedding having already dated for almost five years. The engagement pictures covered our table, where we sat after having just ordered lunch. Damon and I were excited to showcase our photographs, having captured the essence of who we were as a couple, in the mountains of the San Bernardino National Forest: trees, waterfalls, rocks, streams, and nature became the backdrop of the beginning of our relationship as a married couple. One of Damon’s many hobbies was photography, so his keen eye picked up details that the casual observer would miss. From the light to the framing of a shot, he looked at each proof before deciding on a couple. They all looked the same to me!
“We’ve settled it down to these two but are leaning towards this one,” Damon said as he handed the picture to his parents.
Twenty years after this shot, truly embracing my body.
“You look really busty,” were the first words out of my future mother-in-law’s mouth. Mom said it in a matter-of-fact manner as is if we were chatting about the weather and not a part of my body.
The cloud of shame was instant. The red, pseudo-turtleneck sweater, which I wore to the engagement shoot, did not do its job and cover up my breasts in the pictures. It didn’t help that Damon and I sat on a rock, in the middle of a stream, his arms around my waist, accenting the hour-glass figure which lay beneath the clothes.
“You’re showing yourself…modesty…decency,” all the familiar voices came clamoring in my head. Mom probably didn’t mean to critique my body but as a child I was never given the tools to be proud of all the things that my body could do for me so I felt it as a criticism. I had no self-worth or self-love so how could I hold my head up empowered by who I was? I couldn’t.
A few years later, at the birth of our twins, my breasts were engorged with milk a month prior to delivering the boys.
“Ohhhh…MashAllah, you’ll have lots of milk for your children,” Umme proudly declared.
The same Umme who has never discussed the female form, except to place it in a powerless position, waiting for a man to marry and have his way with you – that same Umme was discussing my breasts – proudly and openly – for the mere fact that they were producing a liquid which my newborns would benefit from.
My “lots of milk” never materialized. I breastfed upwards of 23 hours a day the first week but the boys sustained weight loss. They were always hungry. Having decided for myself that this was my journey, Damon helped me tape miniature tubes to the tops of my breasts, laying them down over each of my nipples, dispensing formula from a container tethered somewhere on my body, while the boys breastfed on my milk and the formula for nourishment. Umme cooked up a mixture that was sure to get my glands to cooperate; a family recipe that had been passed down for generations. After three months – nothing.
“The shame swallowed me whole.”
My breasts failed me. The one thing I wanted them to do – needed them to do – they refused. The shame swallowed me whole. If this act, so natural since the beginning of time, was unattainable for me, how the hell was I going to be a good mom?
Besides Umme forcing her agenda, my in-laws were aghast that I would allow my body to be used like a dairy cow. “How could you…” the stares implied from both factions of our families trying their best to gather evidence so I would side with their comfort level.
The one person – the only person – who stood by what I decided to do was Damon. Over and over again, he reiterated, “You do what is best for you. Do what feels right to you.” He reminded me of what happened the night the boys were born: after a full day of trying to induce labor, a Caesarean was planned; the team of doctors, led by Dr. Small, found that I had toxemia on my uterus; what was supposed to be a routine C-section (albeit high-risk because of the twins) turned the operating room dreadfully quiet; moments before where there was talk and laughter about the upcoming weekend, there was silence and precision; I felt tugging and pulling; the anesthesiologist could no longer give me more of whatever was keeping me from the acute pain; Damon’s eyes locked with mine; he held my hand firmly as I promised him all will be well and that the boys were born healthy; my body did right by them. His eyes got a greyish-blue while tears brimmed up.
“I love you,” we said to one another.
“Get her into ICU,” the voice of Dr. Small commanded.
Moments later a large hospital laundry basket was rolled past awaiting family with white towels – now red – drenched in my blood. Umme lost hope when her daughter was wheeled past, my normal brown skin the color of grey ash. I needed a two unit blood transfusion; Damon sat by my side all night knowing that our children were cared for, receiving nourishment and nurturing from the angels we call nurses.
Nurses and Dr. Small checked on me every hour throughout the night. Strict instructions were left to “massage” my uterus. No matter who massaged me: Dr. Small, a resident doctor, or a nurse I would mutter in delirium, “You’re killing me, Smalls,” a line from Sandlot, one of my favorite movies. To this day, Damon recalls realizing at that very moment that I never lose my sense of humor – no matter the situation.
Not until I had forgiven myself, through years of therapy, of not being able to lactate enough to feed my children did I appreciate what I could do for them. Not until I let go of the stigma of nursing versus not nursing did I appreciate the right for every woman to have the choice over her own body to do what is best for her, without shame or ridicule. Not until I let go of the notion that one parenting model is a one-size fits all structure did I appreciate all the different ways of parenting around me. Not until I let go of shame in my body, my breasts, and my past did I arrive fully to love myself just as I am – nothing more, nothing less.
“I’ve realized that feminism is less about a specific sex than it is about the act of supporting one another.”
I’ve realized that feminism is less about a specific sex than it is about the act of supporting one another. Years ago, while watching an interview with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda, both pioneers in the feminist movement, did I understand the true meaning of feminism. Women have the right to make choices for themselves, their bodies, their families, and their well-being. We do not have to agree with one another but it is our sacred duty to love and support one another. If not us – then who?
We are women: givers of life; priestess of temples long ago; nurturers; Goddesses who walk amongst men; Mother Earth; Mother Nature; powers who are united to love. It must start from within and radiate out. Do not harness that power internally but allow it to flow freely from you to everyone in your path.
My breasts are healthy. I take care of them by performing a self-breast examination every month and a mammogram yearly. They are not ornamental unless I choose them to be: on the rare occasion, usually an adult night out, I might show some décolletage, but it’s my body and my choice. They no longer hold shame; none of my body holds shame. It is a miracle of activity which I give thanks for on a daily basis. It is a joy to be alive and finally love the body that I have.
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