A Good Mother
It took thirty-five years
for you to find me.
I wasn’t hiding.
I just wasn’t ready
to be found.
I was astutely preparing
from an office chair,
behind a computer.
Honing skills
that deem one:
Adult—
Arriving to work,
on time, hosting
meetings, taking calls.
What could any of that
have to do
with you?
The answer lies not
within the task
but the responsibility
carried out.
Without understanding
responsibility,
I could never have
begun to altruistically
care for you.
During those thirty-five years
I changed course many—
some might say,
—too many, times.
You see,
I needed to find myself
before I found you.
In the years
before your birth,
I was preparing
a patient’s medications,
placing IV’s,
administering blood.
Like a good nurse
might do.
I was needling
the numbers into the
hard plastic pump and
pressing start.
Finger numbing work,
during endless shifts,
but patients, my
patients,
they needed me.
They taught me
the importance of
advocacy.
They gave me practice,
strengthened my voice,
so to have a stake
in the fight.
Our fight.
My fight,
for you.
I didn’t know it then,
but they
were preparing me
for my future
with you.
A life no mother
could imagine
before being told
she has a sick child.
Desperately
wishing there
was some way
to undo what the body
had done
when creating you.
A betrayal
to us both.
My body betrayed
your body
which then
failed you.
For thirty-five years,
I was preparing to be
the best
Mother I could be,
for you.
It took thirty-five years
of diligent preparation.
A surviving my twenties
exultation,
a dismissal
of selfishness,
to feel ready
to welcome you.
You found me.
You chose me
for reasons I cannot
fathom, for reasons
I want to, but
will never know.
I promised
I wouldn’t
disappoint you when
I signed the
proprietary
dotted line.
You, my daughter,
signed below.
A soul contract.
I believe it
was written in the fine
print, the part that I—
I was yours.
Forever yours, as I was,
and will be,
eternally.
I learned
the fine print
was missing
the clause
guaranteeing
you’d be mine
for a second,
but still—
I signed.
Because one moment
with you
was worth
an eternity of suffering
without you.
Because that’s
what good
mothers do.
Thirty-five years was never enough
to prepare for what
we together, would endure.
Then again,
one thousand years
could not have prepared me
for losing you.
Thirty-five years and
then there was you.
Seemed simple,
easy, yet momentous.
You made time feel
fast without
speeding it up.
You made time feel
absent
as if we existed
astrally
together
past and future
forms of ourselves.
Bursts of energies.
Our light
reflected in
one-another.
It took thirty-five years
for us to meet
and after knowing you,
I know
life without you,
is an eternal
sentencing.
I spent thirty-five years
preparing
for you,
in ways I didn’t
understand, until long
after we had met.
Until long after
you had gone.
A skill set I continue
to refine.
I wasn’t perfect.
I was just mom, and
I did the best,
a good mother,
could do.
You will always be my baby
and I, your mother.
In death, there are
few things
that never change.
These are two.
Love is the good
in a good mother.
The love,
the space in the heart
that only exists—
(here and not)
—for you.
It took you thirty-five years
to find me.
I’ll spend the rest of my life
looking for you.
In the sky, the trees, the
darkness of the night.
We will come so close,
we feel
one another’s warmth,
but far enough, we attribute
the warmth to
something or
someone else.
You created the good
mother in me,
and I’ll plan to be
the best mother
I can be
which I now realize
is the only mother
you ever knew.
