Mother to Mother

“Thanks, Dad. What is this?”

“It’s a letter from your mother. She wanted me to give it to you if you got pregnant, and if not, before I passed away. I’m so grateful I can give it to you now, while I’m still young enough to spoil the little girl you’re expecting. I’m as excited to have a granddaughter as I was when your mother and I found out she was pregnant with you. Your mother is just as excited.”

Jordan’s eyes filled with tears at the thought of the mother she only knew through the endless stories her family and parents’ friends told her about Barbara.

Her hand trembled as she reached for the rose-colored envelope, opened it, and withdrew the sheets of stationery.

A tear slid down Jordan’s cheek and stained a couple of words on the first sheet before she started to read the letter her mother, whom she never knew, wrote to her.

As soon as Jordan was born, her father, while still crying, disconnected the machines that had kept her mother alive, and they lost the woman who gave her life so Jordan could live. They both missed the woman they loved.

Dear Jordan,

I’m proud of who you’ve become: a beautiful young lady with a full life ahead of her.

You are what I am most proud of, and I'm honored to give my life for yours. If I accepted treatment, you wouldn’t be the woman you are today.

I regret nothing about my choice, and you shouldn’t either, although I’m sure you do.

Don’t.

It was not your fault. Always remember it was my decision.

I don’t blame you, and your father doesn’t blame you. Together, we made the choice you should live; we decided I already lived the life I’d dreamed of, and the only goal I had left to accomplish was done the night your father and I conceived you.

When the doctor told me I was pregnant, I was thrilled.

Then I got the other news. My frequent migraines were due to a tumor, a glioblastoma, stage four.

The options the doctor gave me weren’t options in my mind, as they would have harmed you. I wouldn’t allow it.

You were a miracle in a time of despair. I love and miss both you and your father more than you’ll ever know.

I’ve been by your side from the moment you took your first breath, after the moment I took my last.

Your father and I argued for hours every day for two weeks. It’s not that he didn’t want you, because he did.

But he wasn’t ready to let me go. He came to understand my point of view; I’d lived my life, and my life would continue on in you.

So, finally, he agreed to let me go.

He knew your new life took precedence over what life I might have had left, even with the treatment, which wasn’t guaranteed to work. It wasn’t worth the chance.

I’ve always watched over you, did my best to protect you, and served as a beacon of strength and hope for your father, left to raise you alone until he met someone worthy of being both your mother and his wife.

My heart breaks at how my death will devastate him. I worry what he will do once I’m gone. I don’t want him sleeping on a cot in the nursery because he can’t sleep in our bed without me.

I feel guilty leaving him, struggling to raise you alone. I can already see him calling both your grandmothers, begging them to help him make you stop crying, when nothing he was trying worked.

Know I am always with you; I will see you stand up for the first time, take your first steps, hear your first words, and hear you call someone else, “Mama.”

That will hurt, but I know whoever you say it to will deserve the title.

Your father and I agreed he would mourn me, but never forget me, as I would live on in you.

We decided he would start dating again if he became attracted to someone.

He and I both knew she would have to be someone special, willing to live with the memory of me living on in you, and to understand a piece of your father’s heart would always belong to me.I know whoever your father chooses, if anyone at all, will be only kind, caring and loving to you and treat you like their own.

My heart will break when he meets someone who will love him the way I did and accept you as her own. I can only imagine how you will struggle to accept her as your mother, and how you will feel guilty for doing it.

Don’t.

I trust your father to love someone who will care for you without judgment or resentment. Who won’t hate your father remembering me and telling you about me.

She will need to understand she could never replace me, and she will. But she will help raise you to be the wonderful, beautiful, caring, sweet woman you are today, and she will do it with my memory in mind.

For that, I will always be thankful to her. I will love the woman your father will choose to be with after I’m gone.

She will always respect your father’s marriage to me and will understand that, although she raised you, I will always be your mother.

And now you’re going to be a mother. You’re experiencing the same joy and happiness your father and I did when I found out I was pregnant with you.

Cherish every moment you have.

Don’t regret my choice.

Enjoy the life I want you to experience.

Don’t feel guilty for loving another as your mother.

Remember, I always watch over you, and I am thrilled I’ll be a grandmother. Please tell your children about me.

I’ll always love you, and one day, far in the future, I will meet you.

Until then, love your baby as much as I love you all.

Love,

Your Mother