Martha’s Mother’s Magic

To say Martha and her mother, the musician Kate McGarrigle were close would be missing the mark by a mile.  As is evident in the documentary, Sing Me The Songs That Say I Love You, A Concert for Kate McGarrigle, screening on Saturday night at Doc NYC, New York’s premiere documentary film festival, Kate and Martha were particularly devoted to each other. Martha was pregnant with her first child while Kate was struggling with a rare form of cancer. As Kate’s life was ending, Martha’s baby’s was just beginning.  When serious complications threatened her baby’s life, Martha learned just how powerful the magic of motherhood is, even in desperate times.

Martha shared her story with us.

When I got pregnant my plan was to stay close to my mother. She was already in the throws of cancer and our understanding of how the disease would progress and when it might take her was very unclear. I was 33 and feeling very proud and strong. My pregnancy was a breeze and the promise of this child gave us reason to smile during a really hard time.

I bounded with energy and enthusiasm and threw myself into a project of making a live record as a side project to sustain my musical career and stay active in my work.  The plan was to release the record, do a couple weeks of promotion, then return to Montreal to be with Kate and prepare for our new arrival. My work schedule took me to about 31 weeks gestation, which my midwife felt was safe since everything seemed to be going so well. But when I was only 30 weeks, my husband and I were thrown into a very difficult situation just a few days before my scheduled return to Montreal.

We were in London doing a couple of shows, which involved me singing Edith Piaf and prancing around stage making jokes. I woke up on the last day of the London shows not feeling great and as the day wore on I started to feel pain. When I performed that night and had to sit down a couple times, I explained to the audience that it was simply "Braxton Hicks" (your uterus practicing) and laughed it off. I knew it wasn't though.

We went to the hospital a couple hours later and I fully expected them to tell me to rest and go home to Montreal. Instead, the baby was born the next day and we stayed in the hospital in Camden town for more than two months.

The first thing I did when things started to take a turn for the worse and my water broke at 30 weeks was to call my mom. Kate answered the phone, and after hearing me describe our dire situation said, “You’re not going to believe this….” Thirty-four years earlier, when Kate was six months pregnant with her first child, she’d been in London, just blocks from where I was in the hospital.  She too went into premature labor and delivered a baby boy too early.  That baby lived for only a couple days, but wasn’t strong enough to survive.  She contracted an infection after her difficult labor and was told she’d never be able to have children again. It was also a very hard time for her and my dad, but I think he realized how deep her loss was and his commitment to her became stronger after that point. She was miserable and that loss marked her life very strongly.

I can only imagine what was going through her head the night i called from London and told her that things were not right and the baby would have to be delivered. As sick as she was, she caught a flight to London and was at the hospital with us before Arcangelo, my son, was 24 hours old. 

Kate often brought up that experience late at night when everything had been said and the only thing left was that missing child.  I can only hope she is finally holding him now.  It was only because my son was born early that my mother was able to meet him.  His due date had been January 18, which was two-and-a-half months after his actual birth date. As my son grew stronger in his incubator over those two months, my mother slowly withered away, but they were both very magical people during that time.   January 18 was the day my mother died.

Sing Me The Songs That Say I Love You is a tribute to Kate’s memory and a musical celebration of the woman who raised Martha, her brother, musician Rufus Wainwright and the magic and love that held Kate tightly bonded to her family, friends and the audience of fans who grieve her loss.    To find out more about where you can see the documentary, click here.