Cut and Run
My son's bris scarred me more than it did him.
by Kris Malone Grossman
March 29, 2007
I should probably mention here that after groveling for Sean's forgiveness, I had gone ahead and asked him to attend the bris, mostly to monitor me for any signs I might snap and stampede like the spooked, hormonal milking cow I was certain I'd become. Stalwart friend that he is, he agreed to be present, and when the MohelWe stumbled over the transliterated Hebrew as a young pianist might hesitate over a tricky score. whipped out several petite tweezer-like instruments and began to stretch Zev's foreskin taut, up and over the head of the penis, Sean turned green. The snow, big, pillowy flakes, had by then cloaked the backyard hollyhock skeletons in white, and, as Zev caterwauled, I felt like I deserved those grueling twenty-four hours of natural labor I'd recently endured. I scanned the room, seeking an anchor apart from Ed's burning hand. The La Leche aunt was quietly crying in the kitchen, and had averted her gaze, as had the friendly rabbi who had just completed the naming ceremony. Next to the dinette stood my parents, whose eyes I dared not catch, lest they visually reprimand me for submitting so easily to the will of a man. My mother-in-law had long since vacated the premises, but Ed's dad, an accomplished doctor and even better sandak, was frequently and generously refreshing Zev's Nuk in wine, then gently placing it in that little pink mouth that, until then, had known only my breast and Ed's pinky. I wanted to cry, but felt if I did, I would be betraying Ed and our decision to proceed.
As Zev continued to howl, we read some prayers about covenants and God, all of us stumbling over the transliterated Hebrew as a young pianist might hesitate over a tricky score. Then the flash of scissors: the cutting commenced, the blood began to flow. Sean, like the La Leche aunt, meditated on some point outside the window — a passing car, a cardinal. I forced myself to watch Zev, squeezing Ed's hand harder and harder, feeling a wave of nausea rising in me: now Zev, like me, was bleeding down below. As the foreskin began to ablate, the curved tip of Zev's penis showing through, I kept telling myself that, colicky as he was, he would be crying regardless. "Circumcision doesn't hurt," many had assured me. Of course, some folks had said the same thing about childbirth.
Then it was over. A smeary coil of A&D diaper ointment, another prayer, a thick tangle of gauze — a nod to the stacks of nursing pads and other myriad cotton goods our home had recently amassed: diapers and burp cloths, panty liners, witch hazel hemorrhoid pads. I did not ask where the Mohel disposed of the foreskin, though I have since learned that he probably buried it somewhere, most likely beneath a tree. And while I was only mildly consoled when my sister-in-law, a doctor who had herself performed many circumcisions, informed me the Mohel had fashioned Zev an aesthetically "gorgeous head," I was recently profoundly relieved to hear that HIV rates are lower in circumcised men: reason enough for Zev to forgive me someday. Then I remembered back to the bris. How afterward, Ed held me and thanked me over and over, and said he loved me more than ever. How, when we got Zev back in our arms, the three of us slowly began to heal.
©2007 Kris Malone Grossman and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Kris Malone Grossman earned a BA in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and has taught writing at Hofstra University. Her work appears in the anthology The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change. She makes her home in Ridgefield, CT, with her husband and three sons. |
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