My Dear Child,
This is Mommy talking. This letter is about love.
You are my very own child and I love you so much.
It has been very painful to see you struggle with your feelings
as you try to find solutions to life's most difficult problems, though you have
rarely shared with me exactly what it is you have been thinking. I have tried
to understand, and tried my very best to provide you with loving support, even
as it seems you have insisted on doing everything your own way, independently
of what I have tried to tell you. I often feel you are telling me you are not
interested in listening to my opinion, that you feel I cannot possibly
understand what you are going through, that you believe I cannot help you.
Every person in the world has their own unique set of
experiences, but that does not mean they cannot be connected to other people in
loving ways. I would hope you can work on removing the obstacles you have
consciously set between us, and eventually come to understand that my role in
your life as your mother is a valid one, a treasure worth preserving.
I would like for us both to try to heal our relationship, as
we move forward.
As I sense that you have pushed me away, I have experienced
a broken sense of trust, which may take a long time to restore. It may never again
be the open trust I have come to rely on with my other loved ones, friends and
family, and this loss of trust between you and me produces, deep in my heart, a
profound sorrow.
I have always felt you to be closest to my heart. Your
approach toward life and your challenges so nearly resemble my own struggles,
as I worked at developing clear thought and an awareness of my own place in the
universe, as one of its many unique individuals.
I am rooting for you in your battle for a sense of wellness
and wholeness. I want to believe that you are on your way to growing into the
healthy adult I have always hoped you want to become. If you ultimately fail in
that venture, I want it to be not for a lack of trying, nor for a perception by
you that it is not possible or that you are not deserving of success. No one—anywhere or at any time, past or present or future—deserves more of a wonderful
life than you do.
It grieves me that I have often been clueless as to your
state of mind, as you have not seemed to be able to share with me your thought
processes. You did not describe to me what you were suffering, either because
you did not want me to know that there was anything wrong, or because you
yourself did not understand what was happening to you. I understood more than
you think I did, because my own internal struggles during childhood and adolescence
were so similar to yours.
We may not have all the answers, but I want you to know that
I am here alongside you on this path called life and I would like to walk with
you as time moves on.
Please consider my wishes. I believe it is somehow important
to a person's sense of being as a whole person, to remain connected with your
family who loves you, even as we appreciate that each is a unique individual
who is not like anyone else in the world. My expectation is not, that you will
become like me, or indistinguishable from any of the rest of us—an invisible, though
important, pillar of society—but that you will come into your own and feel you
are free to become yourself, in whatever manner you find best suits you. You
may then want to share with us, your family, that wonderful person, the
"you" who you are. I hope you will share with me, your mother, the
person who you are now, as an adult, and continue to share with me the "you" who
you are, at every future step of your life. You have grown and changed. You
began as a child and were nurtured by me, from within myself, and from within
our family.
From the time I first saw your exquisite face, minutes after
you were born, when they brought you to me and I could hold you for the first
time, I felt a special incredible love and an extraordinary deep spiritual connection
with you, my child.
I was then dumbfounded with hurt and surprise when,
suddenly, I realized I had been caught unaware by the facts, what is implied in
the discovery that one is in the presence of true love. I found myself unprepared
for a new and awful sense of worry. The realization hit me, that this fountain,
overflowing with joy and unblemished happiness, might not last forever. It was
so distressing, my awareness that this bliss could vanish, in any instant,
without warning.
I could have wallowed in the misery of my awareness of the
inevitability of loss of that which is most precious, but I decided to choose differently,
and make my reality one that would continue to contain our eternal connection.
Our hearts would forever be as one, mother and child. I felt confident that this
truth would sustain me to the end of time, no matter whatever else might happen.
I felt lucky that I had finally been able to enjoy that
moment when we first met and we physically touched our skins together, out in the
open air, as I had felt your presence while I carried you inside me, before you
were born, and had cherished our bonded intimacy. I knew our physical closeness
could not possibly last forever, so I steeled myself against the inevitable time
of our eventual separation, where our paths would go in different directions.
Yet, I knew the intensity of our connection would be
eternal. Through these, my words (if they are preserved), I would hope that
this, an acknowledgement and description of our connection, becomes one with
the consciousness of "all that is."
Now, back to the present moment.
Today, you are grown up and apart from me, both physically
and in other senses of the word "apart." Yet, you are also "a
part" of me. We are parts of a unified "one."
I hope to once again be able to hold you in my arms and tell
you I love you with all my heart. I would hope to hear you someday echo these,
my own feelings, as your own feelings of love for your mother spring honestly
and freely from your own heart.
I wish you all the joy love can bring. I want you to never
give up seeking love, and I want you to find much love. I want for you to find that
it is love that enriches your life, as much as my love of you has enriched my
own life.
My love for you will continue to make me happy until I die.
I hope my love for you will live forever in your own heart, as you remember me
throughout the rest of your own life, even if you outlive me. You will always
have my love. Always know how much I always love you. This love and our
connection will last forever.
Love,
Mommy