Vivianna Week, Day Nine: Mary Calmes

I am so honored to have Mary Calmes here today for Vivianna Week. She wrote a very sweet, short post about her relationship with her mother and what she learned about it after having her daughter. Mary has been an absolute sweetheart to me over the last 2 years and has been super supportive of me. She's also one of the most amazing authors that I've ever had the privilege of reading before (hello!? The Change of Heart/werepanther series? Have you read Honored Vow? Or Timing & its sequel After the Sunset?).

So enjoy!

My Daughter 



My mother passed away five years ago and I still miss her. What’s interesting though is that before my oldest child was born, I had not been close to her in about 11 years. I left home when I was eighteen, bolted fast, because growing up with her and my step-father was hard. It’s not important the why what was important was the distance that living together created. We weren’t friends, we weren’t parent and child. We were nothing. Sometimes we spoke on the phone but the conversations had yearlong lapses between them and for all intents and purposes she was gone from my life. But that all changed with the birth of my first child.

When my girl was born, I finally understood that without your mother, a child has no chance. And I mean without a mother or a father, without a caretaker, that a child is helpless and fragile. I didn’t really get that before. I had done some babysitting and I had friends that had kids but it still didn’t click in my head. But when I became a parent, for me I realized what exactly my mother had done to keep me healthy for the first year of my life. Parenthood is hard. You don’t sleep; I haven’t slept in twelve years at this point. But the birth of my child was the only thing in the world that could have bridged that gap between us. Children born, those who are with us only in hearts or minds, and those that we have lost, bring people together for love and eventual healing. It’s their way.