Dear Mia,

I see you sitting there. I see the fear that you are feeling. I see how much you love your kids. If there is one thing I would have wanted to know when I was your age it is to appreciate my own value. You have such an amazing part of your life ahead of you. You have such pure and beautiful love to share.

What you need to know right now is how much your kids adore you. It may seem like you have lost so much – a marriage, friends, your dreams of the home and the family you thought you were creating. Routines and traditions and cozy holidays. In my eyes looking back, this grief is the process of cleaning off the debris, the stuff that isn’t really you. The people you think you have lost may never be able to see the amazing being that I see.

It may be hard to trust that what your kids want is to love and be loved. By you. It may seem like some parts of their lives continue on fine without you. In reality they are living through those moments with a small black hole in their heart, shaped like you. They are just trying to be brave because they don’t want you to know how much they are hurting. And when they are angry at you yelling that you are the Worst Mom in the World, it is because they are scared to lose you. They may even be scared that you don’t want to be there with them. That you enjoy being away from them more than with them.

Tell your kids how much you adore them. Not just because they need to know, because they do. But because you will teach them how to let the people they love know how precious they are. It is a wonderful gift of deep connection both to yourself and to them. It is a gift of love. Teach your way through this healing.

Can we make a deal? How about once a day you share with someone something you adore about them? Or even if it is once a week, once a month. Whatever feels doable. I don’t want you to ever judge yourself for not living up to my goals or expectations for you. I want you to only love what is. Because in my heart there is only love for you.

Thank you for hearing the care that put these words on paper. As Maya Angelou said: ‘If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.’ This is what your children gave you, the gift of caring deeply. 

With gratitude for who you are in this world,

80-year old Mia