Choosen Roots

Dear Mum,

I wasn’t born beneath your name… Nor carried in your womb… from your flame… But somehow… somehow you saw me. Small… wild… untamed in ways I didn’t understand yet. And whispered—almost without thinking—“Yes… This is our child.” I remember, or maybe I only feel it now, the weight of that moment… the quiet certainty that I belonged somewhere… that someone had chosen me… really chosen me. The world can be loud, chaotic, and unkind, and yet, in that instant, you offered calm… You offered belonging… You provided me a home before I even knew what it meant to have one.

I remember little things… or maybe they are echoes… the first time your hand found mine… or was it my shoulder? I can’t remember exactly… only that it was warm… steady… something that said, You belong here. You have a place. And that place… that home… wasn’t a house, wasn’t walls or floors or furniture… it was the way you looked at me… the way you let me be messy… let me fall apart… let me be human… and somehow, still, you didn’t step away. You held the pieces… even the sharp, jagged edges… and made room for all of it.

No map… no guide… nothing in the world led me to your door. I wandered… lost… a fragment of myself I barely recognized… a soul that was half-hidden even from me. No lullabies… no songs from days before… echoes… my own echoes bouncing back at me… until your eyes… they became the shore. A shore for a heart that had never known anchoring… a place that said, Rest here. You are safe here. And in that safety… I began to grow… slowly, unsurely, but I started.

You stitched my tears… little by little… the way one might mend something delicate, something fragile, something too easily torn. Threads of grace… I still feel them sometimes, when the nights are quiet and the world feels distant. You gave my scattered soul a place to land… a sanctuary I didn’t even know existed. I didn’t ask… or maybe I did, in the quietest corners of my heart… but it came anyway. You came. You didn’t hesitate. You stayed. You built something that didn’t exist before… simply by being here.

I used to think family was only blood… lines on skin, names we inherit, history written long before we could even speak. I thought that was everything… but love… love can be the flood. It can break walls… reshape landscapes… build something entirely new… something enduring, something alive. You showed me that. You showed me how to trust again… how to believe… how to let myself be held… fully, without reservation. I see it now… in every quiet breath I take, in every small, unsteady step I make toward who I am meant to be.

There is a history I never knew… a past I cannot claim… and yet, somehow, it blooms. Roots intertwine with mine. I watch myself grow… and I see you. I see the patience, the quiet courage, the steady belief that I could be more… more than the sum of what I came from. Some nights, I lie awake… tracing your face in my mind… thinking of all the ways you carried me long before I could carry myself… before I even knew I needed carrying… and I feel a quiet gratitude that almost hurts, it is so deep.

People ask sometimes, “Where do you come from?” And I smile… softly… almost shyly… and speak your name. Not because of birth, not because of law… but because you gave me everything else. Roots… wings… a home in a world that often felt too large, too cold, too indifferent. I catch myself thinking of the life I might have had… and then I look at you… and I think of the life I do have. I am not less… not broken… not incomplete. I am whole… because of you.

I want you to know… in the quietest corners, in the spaces where my heart feels most exposed, that you are family. Not by blood… not by law… but by hours, by care, by love… by choosing me again and again without hesitation… without question. Family is not only how life begins… it is who stays… who believes… who holds you when nights are too long… who laughs with you when the world feels light enough to carry. And you… you are all of that.

Thank you… for seeing me… for claiming me… for whispering “yes” when I couldn’t… for letting me be messy, human, unsure… for never stepping back… for letting me grow… for letting me be reborn. I am your story now… and you are mine… woven together, old and new, stitched with care, with love, with a quiet faith that what we hold is precious and lasting. Every heartbeat a reminder… every glance a promise… that family, true family, is not only what you are given… it is what you choose. And I chose you… without question… without fear… without end.

Always,

[Your Name]