Dear Mother

To the mother I thought I had to be,

I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you said you needed rest. I’m sorry I made you believe the house being cleaned and the clothes being put away gave you worth. And that what things looked like when someone else came in meant more than a calm heart and a peaceful soul. I see how I left you when you needed me most. I didn’t comfort you, I didn’t hold you in my arms or think to ask if you needed help. I let you bottle everything up and push through, letting you be the mother that society presents to little girls on magazine covers, slowly dying inside… lonely, overwhelmed, exhausted, and yet you just kept pushing through, thinking it was all yours to carry, thinking you had to do it all and yet it wasn’t enough… it would never be enough. I see how you followed in the footsteps of all the mothers that came before, trying to do it all when the weight and the demands of motherhood are meant to be shared in community, with support, with love. Believing that you must deny your needs in order to care for another. Mistaking sacrifice for love.