“I felt nothing”: Coping with the silent shame of maternal deafness after an unimaginable loss

At the age of 29, Dominique Olivier’s life suddenly collapsed. Her husband and toddler were killed in a car accident, she was widowed and had to travel the world with a five-week-old newborn.

In her raw, deeply honest book, Dominique addresses the things we are often too afraid to say out loud. She talks about the “open, boring nothingness” of maternal rigidity and the isolation of single-parent children. Added to this is the strenuous process of finding a reason to wake up after a trauma.

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Part memoir, part self-guide, this is a story about redefining what it means to “move forward.” Dominique shows that even in our darkest chapters, we can find the strength to persevere and rewrite our story.

In this excerpt, she talks about struggling to bond with her baby after a tragedy. And then the simple, relentless routine that ultimately saved them both.

The first real job I had after graduating (other than a few stints as a waitress) was at an arts education NGO. I remember at one of our employee training days the presenter talked about the two types of people in the world – those who are task-oriented and those who are relationship-focused. To support her point, she gave an example of a person waking up in the morning and what their first thoughts might be. The relationship-oriented person might remember that it was someone’s birthday or feel the desire to call a friend they haven’t spoken to in a while. The task-oriented person, on the other hand, began mentally creating a checklist of tasks they wanted to accomplish throughout the day.

In a way, being a task-oriented person helped me get through the first few strange days immediately after the accident. Life as I knew it had sunk like a ship, and while everything familiar lay at the bottom of the ocean, I was a lone survivor, clinging to scattered pieces of debris. I hadn’t been home since I left our apartment to go to the hospital that Friday afternoon. Instead, I had moved into the guest room at my mother’s house with nothing but the diaper bag I had packed for Florence. The first day after the accident, my father and brother returned to the apartment to pick up diapers, clothes, and basic toiletries for me and Florence.

“When I looked at her, held her, or fed her, I felt…nothing. No love, no hate, or anger, just an open, boring kind of nothing.”

There are few things that move you as much as the need to care for a baby, and so Florence was, in her own unwitting way, central to my functioning in those early days. I exclusively breastfed her because she refused to take a bottle, so it was my sole job to nurse her every few hours. I was surrounded by my family the whole time. My mother was constantly present, my father came over almost every night, and my brother and his wife cut short their vacation in Mozambique to sleep on my mother’s couch for a week just to be close. Other friends and family members came over regularly.

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There were many willing hands to hold Florence, but when it came time to feed her, she always came back to me. Looking back now, I’m not sure how I would have gotten out of bed each day without the fragile security of that familiar and necessary rhythm: feeding, burping, changing, lulling me to sleep, repeating endlessly.

“I was essentially operating on autopilot, carrying out the duties of motherhood with as much emotional investment as I would put into washing a lot of dishes.”

While I did everything I needed to do to meet Florence’s needs, I was unable to bond with her. At six weeks she was good-natured and calm. She was the furthest thing from being a difficult or needy baby, but when I looked at her, held her, or fed her, I felt… nothing. No love, no hate or anger, just an open, boring kind of nothingness. I was essentially operating on autopilot, carrying out the duties of motherhood with as much emotional investment as I would put into washing a lot of dishes.

As the days turned into weeks, I became increasingly aware and ashamed that I couldn’t love Florence. My shame came not only from the feeling that I was “unmotherly,” but also from the idea that I was somehow ungrateful for having her—this one living remnant of my little family to hold on to. Surely my loss should make me love her all the more, cling to her like a life raft, my very own “raison d’être.” What was so fundamentally wrong with me that I couldn’t find love for the one thing I hadn’t lost?

“That scream was a thin but unbreakable thread, the only thing that tied me to a world I desperately wanted to leave behind.”

I hid these feelings deep inside, convinced they were wrong. Socially, I played the role of an engaged mother, but privately, I struggled to maintain eye contact with my baby. I acted defensively, like I was some kind of fraud and like only she (at six weeks old) could see through me. Worse, I began to see it as an obstacle, an earthly obligation that was keeping me from my true goal, which at this stage was death.

Most nights I actively fell asleep, hoping that I wouldn’t wake up, that my life would simply slip away from me before morning and I would join Jaendré and Felix wherever they were. I dreamed of dying, of easing the incomprehensible pain I constantly suffered, of being reunited – and each time my fantasy was interrupted by the cry of a baby, a shrill and inescapable reminder that I was still needed here. That scream was a thin but unbreakable thread, the only thing binding me to a world I desperately wanted to leave behind.

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“I feel like I’m watching an episode of a stranger’s life. How could it be me – the same person who would now move mountains for her daughter?”

Many of the people who visited me in the first few days told me that I had to be strong for Florence because I was all she had left. I listened to them and nodded, but in my heart I disagreed. Even though I was too numb to feel anything for Florence, I still knew that I wanted the best for her, and I kept convincing myself that I wasn’t the best for Florence. I wanted her to be loved and appreciated. How could someone as broken as me give her the love she deserved? Not just now, but every day for the rest of her life? How could I do that when I couldn’t even bring myself to smile at her?

My desire to die was unbroken, as was my growing sense of guilt towards Florence. I truly believed that the best future for her would be one that didn’t involve me, but at the same time I didn’t want her to know that I had voluntarily withdrawn from her life. The trauma of the accident was bad enough. So I started writing teaching letters. A letter addressed to my brother and his wife asked them to raise Florence under the pretext that I had also died in the accident.

“In increments too small to measure, my feelings of commitment to her were weakened and replaced—first with affection, then with affection, and finally with lasting love.”

Another letter addressed to Jaendré’s cousin (the only other person in the family with young children) asked him and his wife to raise Florence alongside their sons as if she were their own, without mentioning her true parentage or the accident. I couldn’t decide what outcome would be best for her, so I folded the letters up for safekeeping and hid them in a bedside drawer while I tried to decide. I planned every other element of my exit in great detail, but stopped each time I got to the point where I had to decide what to do with Florence. She would inevitably cry and I would pick her up, feed her, change her, and rock her to sleep.

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As I write this, Florence is almost three. My love for her is so deep, so profound, so instinctive, that I can hardly come to terms with a time when I didn’t feel that way about her. I think back to those letters (which I eventually destroyed) and how I instructed others to look after my child in my absence, and I feel like I’m gazing into an episode of a stranger’s life. How could it be me – the same person who would now move mountains for her daughter?

Photo by Matt Muller Photography

“I imagined a bond similar to that between two soldiers who have seen and survived the horrors of the trenches.”

I wish I could tell you a beautiful story of a tender moment, complete with golden rays of sunshine through the window, when Florence did something – perhaps smiled at me for the first time – and it healed my broken heart and instantly bonded me to her. If my life were a Hallmark movie, it probably would have been portrayed like this. I’m afraid the reality is a little less picture-perfect. There wasn’t a single moment of sunshine. Florence finally started smiling at me (I don’t remember exactly when), but it didn’t have an immediate effect. Instead, what connected me to her was the stability of this slow, boring, relentless routine.

In increments too small to measure, my feelings of obligation to her were cut off and replaced—first with affection, then with affection, and finally with lasting love. Over the weeks, she went from an expressionless newborn to a friendly, happy, engaged baby who thrived on and actively sought attention. She often cooed and smiled at me, doing what she could to distract me from whatever I was busy with so I could come and play with her, pick her up, or kiss her fuzzy head. It took some time, but when Florence and I finally grew closer, I imagined a bond similar to that between two soldiers who had seen and survived the horrors of the trenches.