Dear Mom.

Hi mom. It’s been awhile.

Ever since you breathed life into me on that cold Thursday in 1995, you knew there was something special about me. It was something that you kept a secret, something you held dear to the most intimate parts of your soul, but you raised me in a way that we’d agreed upon the moment that I came into your life in the form of a simple strong plus on an at-home test. My life wasn’t going to be easy. I wasn’t going to grow up with all the bells and whistles of children in my peer group. I was going to be strong-headed, highly sensitive, emotional, and passionate yet slightly behind in sociability; everything that you told yourself that your first-born was going to be but everything that you knew that you or my father couldn’t nurture for long.

The last time we hugged, I knew that we were never going to see one another again. Your grip was so tight, your tears were genuine, but what cemented it into my veins was the way your eyes found every spot of that airport gate except for my eyes. I spent a lot of time wondering why or how a mother could simply give up the rights to their child so close to their adulthood but the secret that I’ve never gotten to say to you is how grateful I am for your decision.

I don’t think there will ever be a moment in my adult life that doesn’t stem from the last moment that we shared together or the circumstances that found me after I got off that four hour flight from Toronto to my new destination. We shared a few calls after I made my new home with your sister and mother, my aunt and grandmother, I went back to normal high school, I made friends, I thrived for awhile, and then the trauma started to rear its ugly face.

It manifested in the little things. Can you imagine being a seventeen year old experiencing sitting at a dinner table for the first time? Not knowing how to properly use a fork and a knife? Imagine being shown care for by somebody in the fashion of new clothes? Imagine the humiliation of being told that you were breaking a house rule for the first time? Now imagine that rule only being that you were on your phone at midnight like a rebellious teenager instead of it being walking downstairs to get a snack or using the bathroom? Imagine having somebody enjoy your presence?

From all of that, I’m sure that you can understand why it didn’t work out. Two months in and she had already found me a new place to live and a way to make money while I finished out the last of my high school years. Had we not lived in Canada, I believe my outcome might’ve been a lot different than it is today. I might’ve turned to alternative lifestyles or vices that you and dad dabbled in a lot more than I ever knew as a child. You kept that stuff pretty far away from us, you kept most things away from us.

But surprisingly, the one thing that always shone through was your strength. And because it shone so brightly, because it runs in your blood, it also runs in mine. I’ve gone through a lot since we parted ways. Homelessness, poverty, depression, anxiety, toxic relationships; I’ve traveled a little bit; I’ve kept the same job for seven years. I’ve healed the angry and mistreated parts of myself that you’re only partially responsible for. I’ve built a home of my own on the hard work of nobody else but myself. I’ve found souls that have taught me so many things that I wouldn’t know otherwise. I’ve had a lot of good opportunities. I’ve made peace with the aunt whose only fault was that she tried to love a child who had never been loved. I’ve rekindled a haphazard and work-in-progress relationship with my dad, your ex-husband, and the sibling that stuck close to him. Most importantly, and why I decided to write this, I’m now a parent myself.

When I learned that I had been chosen as their parent, I’m sure I went through the same emotions that you did when you found out about me. There was joy for a long time, a sort of bliss that I had never really experienced before, and then absolute frantic panic. I spent a lot of money on high quality items for them (that we never used), daydreamed of raising them (Didn’t think of the calculated number of cups of coffee I’d need to function), worried about their safety (while also wanting to toss them into the air like the cool dad) and then they came and any thoughts of wanting to do them harm fell to the wayside.

The first night that we met, both of them fell asleep on my chest. And that same thought of how a mother could give up the rights to their own child creeped back in. The thought stayed with me in the hardest month of my life when I was shuffling around the house, sleep deprived, and unable to do basic things like take a shower or eat an entire bowl of plain white rice without them attached to me. You learn how to make do with only one hand very quickly in the first couple of months, I’ve learned.

Though, the thing that I’ve learned most is that you don’t get to choose whether you love the souls you bring into the world or not. You just do. You grow protective when they’re threatened (even if that threat is the broccoli on their plate or the three year old who pushed them on the playground), you worry about whether they’re sleeping enough, growing enough, whether you’re doing enough to make sure that their lives are going to help them thrive when they’re no longer legally binded to you, or sometimes it's as simple as being afraid they’ll resent you for the pajamas they didn’t want to wear.

Mother’s day has always held a melancholy feeling for me, as your absence is felt by my D.N.A. However, it always reminds me of how much you have to love somebody to put aside your own pride and to do what is best for them. It reminds me that while you may never read this, that you go to bed wondering about the things that I’ve placed here, you still worry about the same things that I now worry about, and you hope that the decision you made has brought me face-to-face with the potential that you always saw in me but could never nurture yourself. I’m grateful that while you sent me on a path that wasn’t easy or comfortable, it brought me straight to the place that I am now and will shape the pathways and decisions I make going forward.

Sometimes, I wonder if you’ve always known that letting me go was the best way to pull me closer.

Sometimes, I wonder if you knew that I would be the one to repair the bridges that you’d burned.

Sometimes, I wonder if our souls planned this from the very start.

Sometimes, I wish you could meet the man who backs my plays or the two little boys who have the unfortunate freckles that you gave all of us.

Sometimes, I wish that you could meet the grown version of yourself.

Maybe one day you will, but until then, take my word for it. Your decision, your life, it taught me that when I hit rock bottom that I could pick myself back up.

Thank you for getting me to the other side of that pit. I couldn’t have done it without you. Even if you stopped holding my hand before I was ready.