Dear Mom,

You were beautiful even when you started losing your hair.

The amount of kindness you hold is enough for the world to be overwhelmingly saved a billion times.

I still regret hating you for leaving

I always wished I wasn't so hard on you then

You were beautiful even when your started losing weight.

The years of insecurities started to shed off and I prayed they'd never come back.

Even though I didn't know God.

I regret feeling sorry for you.

I always hated that... at times I watched you with sad eyes.

You were beautiful even when you were lonely.

After twenty years the life you lived was gone

and it was never going to come back.

I always thought you didn't care at the time.

Still I feel guilty watching the wind blow past you as we sit in the park and chat about the little things.

You were beautiful even when you cried.

Though you never let us see you that way

Some days I wished that you would

But other days I hoped that you wouldn’t

You were beautiful even when you had to learn how to take care of yourself again.

I wondered whether or not it was hard for you

I frowned at the thought myself

You were beautiful even when you didn’t feel you were

As a woman myself, I understand how low the world can make you feel about your appearances

I always imagined myself punching strangers square in the face for looking at you funny

What was so amusing back then that made them smirk?

You beautiful even after I saw dad cry

and I never seen dad cry.

It was a face that would make any daughter detest their mother

But I just couldn’t.

You were beautiful even when you changed your look.

When your nails grew longer and fancier by the day

a your hair curled as if you were going to the club.

I was angry watching you pull up to our house or the school parking lot.

I was embarrassed to see this woman I do not know

and call her my mom.

While we were stuck with dad in a newly cold and empty home

Seeing you float around like a butterfly on a Wednesday afternoon to pick me up from school made me hateful

Back then I still thought you were beautiful even after all those things.

But now that I am older

I realized you were not beautiful

You were strong. You are strong...

and

that's what made you beautiful.

That’s what I admired the most.

The woman I knew my whole life.

The woman that raised me and that birthed me.

And now the woman I will know for the rest of my life.

I still the woman I find beautiful.