Dear Mom,
It is January 24, 2009. You have been dead for 12 years. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been writing these letters all this time…12 years worth of letters telling you about the progression of my life since I last saw you.
Beside me lies a photo of you taken on April 29, 1978. You were 8 months pregnant with me. You look so beautiful in this photo; your stance proud and your smile luminescent.
As I write this, I am 5 months pregnant. I lied in bed this morning with Greg, both our hands on my belly, and felt the little kicking from within. I’ve thought of you so much through this process. I’ve wondered so much about your experience of pregnancy and I’ve sat, hunched over photo albums, peering at polaroids my father surely took of you throughout the nine months before you gave birth to me.
A lot has happened in the last year, mom. A lot that I would have loved to have you here for. Oh, I just had to get up for tissues. I’m already crying. Every single year I think I won’t cry when I write this letter…and every year I do.
I got engaged and married last year, mom. Two things I would have loved to have had you here for, more than anything. Although, I’m sure that when I give birth in June that will top them both, in terms of wishing you were here.
I couldn’t be happier to be married, mom. Greg is the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. Besides Dad. He’s so kind and caring and patient and he makes me feel complete in a way that I never expected. It’s just like you wrote to me all those years ago –
Find yourself and you’ll find your other self, you wrote. Give each other space and respect – there can be no tiny, nagging doubt. The Italians have a name for it – colpe di fulme – and it’s likened to being struck by lightening when you both meet, which I adore. Accept nothing else. Have babies which I can take care of. Please choose a man who adores you and would never hurt you.
And it was like that, mom. There was never any doubt, never any question. Falling in love with Greg was the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. In April of last year he got down on one knee and put a ring on my finger and asked me to marry him. It was your ring, mom. He took the stone from the beautiful engagement ring that Dad gave you and had it made into something special just for me. Every time I look at it, I’m reminded of you and Dad and the love that I come from.
We were married in July on Cape Cod. In the very church where you were married over 30 years ago. I’ve never felt so beautiful or happy in my life as I did on that day. Uncle David officiated the ceremony, just as he did for you and Dad, and Greg and I exchanged vows that we wrote ourselves. That afternoon we dined on lobsters and champagne in Pam’s backyard by the beach and then we all went swimming in the ocean. It couldn’t have been a more perfect day.
Afterwards we returned to our life in Chicago, our beautiful home on the river with the ducks and softly flowing water and cicadas ringing in the trees. And in September we conceived the baby that I’m carrying. I thought of you so much that month, wondering what it had been like for you and Dad in those first few weeks of learning that you were pregnant with me. It happened so fast for us, but we couldn’t be more excited.
I’m due in June, just a couple of weeks after my 31st birthday. I like thinking that you and I will have carried our babies through the same seasons. I look forward to the warmer months, to spring and then summer and the baby here, making three of us. If I haven’t already felt part of a family again, I know I will, more than ever, then.
But I miss you, mom. So much. I wish you were here with me through these life events. But I also know that you knew I would do all these things, that I would grow into the woman I am, that I would marry and have babies and be beautiful and happy.
I hope to be as good a mother as you were. To give my child the same fierce love and understanding that you never ceased to bestow on me. It’s a love I still feel today, and of that, there is no greater gift that a parent can give. Thank you.
Your only daughter,
Claire
