The Mother You Made Me, by Katharine Foust

To My Son,

Mother’s Day is coming soon. As you do every year, you will feel bad that you can’t buy me something. Words cannot make you fully understand why I prefer the things you make me with your own small hands to anything you could get for me with money. One day your own child will shyly give you a handmade gift or card and you will know, as do I, the thought and effort that went into this creation. You will also know that no store can possibly duplicate the effort that went into this gift of love. Let me see if I can explain why no amount of cash can purchase what you have given me.

You try to buy me flowers. You can’t see the garden that blooms within me every time I see you perform a kind gesture for a stranger. You don’t know that every kind gesture you perform plants a seed in the mind of those you do kindness to.

You wish to buy me a necklace, but I prefer the glow in my heart that outshines any jewel that would adorn my neck. The jewel in my heart gets brighter with every hug I get from you.

That ring in the store begs you to put it on my finger. How can you not see that your hand in mine is the only adornment I require? (more…)

Dear Birth Mother of My Daughter, by Laurie Darroch-Meekis

Dear Birth Mother of My Daughter,

I have never seen you face to face. You have no idea who I am. What I do know is, because of you I have my daughter.

There have been times I have been so angry with you. I watch my daughter, a wondrous and happy child  who lights up any place she goes, and wonder how you could have thrown her away. I wonder if she ever crosses your mind. You brought her into the orphanage the day she was born. My anger at those moments is only because she is such a loving child that I don’t see how you could have given her up. It is my protective streak saying, “How dare you reject my child!” (more…)