Coming Full Circle - a letter from a daughter to her mother

When I picked you from afar, I knew that you would gift me with life. With intention and purpose, I floated into your womb... absorbing your molecules and making them mine. 

While tethered to you, I was cared for and fearless as you willingly provided nourishment, safety and unconditional love. I was enveloped by the sounds in the depths of your belly, and your heartbeat and mine beat together in a life-forming synchronistic rhythm. 

Within the safety of your womb, I grew from a seedling into a tiny being ... swimming, kicking and moved about unabashedly. 

The nine months I had with you had prepared me to meet the challenges of life, and the time of gestation was quickly coming to an end.

I tried to hold on, to resist this part of my journey, because I had a knowing that our time together on earth, outside your womb, would be cut short.  

Nonetheless, you pushed me forward. Your body urged me to move into the world, like an ocean wave crashing towards the shore.   As I gulped in my first breathe of air and cried out, you breathed a sigh of relief, knowing with certainty that I would survive.

And, then, you imprinted me with a sign of your love when you bestowed upon me the unique and beautiful name to which I answer.  I am and always will be your Laurel Diane.

Not until the afternoon of my life have I finally come to understand the importance of the time we spent together in those first nine months.   Although we had only one precious year left to be together, your loving imprint became permanently affixed to my heart.  

You, my loving mother, have always helped me come full circle ... even as my guardian angel. 

Laurel Diane Rund

Mother’s Day – the Vortex

“When a daughter loses a mother, the intervals between grief responses lengthen over time, but her longing never disappears. It always hovers at the edge of her awareness, prepared to surface at any time, in any place, in the least expected ways.” ― Hope Edelman, Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss

Mother’s Day is a day to honor and be honored.  It is also a day which I have struggled with my whole life; having lost my mother when I was 13 months of age.  Some holidays, which are celebrated by most with joy and happiness, are triggers of sadness for others.  Perhaps what I wrote to my mother will touch someone else’s heart who struggles with the day as I do.

“A mother’s death also means the loss of the consistent, supportive family system that once supplied her with a secure home base, she then has to develop her self-confidence and self-esteem through alternate means. Without a mother or mother-figure to guide her, a daughter also has to piece together a female self-image of her own.” ― Hope Edelman, Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss