Treasured Tales

"Momma, I'm a woman now. I know, baby. I replied with tears. I brushed the stray hairs from her brow and wiped away tears trickling down her peachy flush cheeks.

With my wrinkled, opaque, vanishing face of freckles, I returned, "I am so very sorry dear Zoë Kennedy; I love you so much. I never meant to hurt you. Please forgive me, will you forgive me?

"Yes, I do, Momma." She replied.

The emotions flooded me like a damn that finally broke open. No longer a desire to run, stance with defensiveness, nor fear fleeing from the rejoice of our mending hearts. No one else existed, just a mother and daughter, reconnecting, healing and closure after five long years.

I kept holding onto her as an overwhelming yet fleeting thought surfaced like a swift gust of strong wind, "will this same embrace be my last one of mortality duplicating itself as it did with Sawyer on Mothers day of 2019?" Will, I become childless without her pup once again." Those thoughts cross over a mother that's lost a child to travesty. I restrained the enormous impact of my pounding heart. I quickly diverted my thoughts. No, I said to myself. That is fear attempting to drive a wedge from my flourishing and blossoming newfound relations with my daughter of womanhood.

I slowly turned around, walked inside the cottage and leaned against the nine pane window cottage door of chipping rust paint, peering out, watching her leave, yet allowing myself the consent to feel uncomfortable for the moment. I gave myself the gift of release and the washing away of an olde chapter in my life that has now page turned. If you were to cut my chest open, that scar remains there carved into my heart, but today no longer a wound of injury and sadness. It is now a memory of a mother nicely tucking away a moment in time for safekeeping as you would treasure gifts in a young girls hope chest awaiting anticipation of a never-ending reopening of learning and discovery. Lodged deep within us all, we can see our life stories as beautiful tales with winding roads patched together in love.

How will your story end?