The new month is upon us and oh! The excitement to kick it off with the #WinterABC24 challenge, I am here to offer as many offerings as I am able to , I pray for the grace to complete thechallenge and if I don’t, I tried. Sooooooo, motherhood huh! What to say ?

I never knew the love of a parent. I do not have a relationship with my birth mother. I do not know if she thinks of me and how I turned out. I do not know why she did not want me. She wanted others because she had them and still does. Those other, they know things I will never know. So when you ask me what my dream was or is, it is to be the best mother I can imagine. 

I had known the love of a man though. It started when we were younger and he was my boo. This was way before the song. Take my word for it. We were young and excited about the future. Ambitious and determined. Dreamers. Lovers. We did not have much but boy were we big dreamers. It seemed like forever would not be enough for us. I envisioned all the children we would have. The games we would play. The memories we would make. He swore, he swore to never leave. I did not have to swear anything because I was not going anywhere. I had found love with him and a home to boot. 

Have you ever heard a saying and thought to yourself, ‘that will never be me.’ They say that when you love someone or something, let it go. What is truly yours will inevitably, against all odds, beat all hindrances and make its way back to you. There is only one problem I see with that – why must what is mine first have to go away to be truly mine? It just does not make any sense. This man, the love I had known, had gone away. To where? I could not bring myself to imagine. I do not know if he knew or even considered that it was not just him that left. He left with the home we had and the dreams I had dreamed. He had taken my children. My motherhood. 

I would hear later that he had taken to himself a damsel. His fortunes had turned around. He was doing better than where he left us. Our dreams had come to pass for him. My heart ached. After a while, I allowed myself some schmoozing with other men. With my love gone, the approaches of others that I never used to give second thought had started finding new appeal to me. I knew better than to think they would be my new forever dream but at least they would be a present one. 

One of those approaches grew into some affection. I started to feel alive again. That fire that raged between my love and I was not here anymore but it was not as cold as after he left. Maybe they lied that those who did not know love in their puerility would not have it to give. I am not them. I came to love this man. Another man. I could not love him fully because the cup from which I poured was not full anymore. I gave from what I had left. I always thought it was unfair but he did not know that. What endeared him to me was the want for children. 

It was not long after that I found out I was with child. Oh what joy filled my heart! Time had never been slower because I could not wait to have and to hold the fruit of my womb. That was the longest nine months of my life. After eons, my baby arrived. It is not every day that a dream manifests before your very eyes and you hold it in your hands. So tiny but a big deal for me. So tender but the sum of my strength. I had found love again. Maybe there isn’t only one place to pour from because I left like I was loving from a source I had never tapped into. 

What I did not expect was to raise this wonder of life by myself. Alone. The man with whom we made life started slipping through my hands. It felt like when I held my baby, I lost my man. I did not know how to hold my baby with one arm and hold a man with another. What human walks away from such bliss and joy? This man did. The heart can carry love and pain at the same time, I came to learn. Duality offers a choice. I chose love. The love for my child. I fed him. I heard him speak his first words. He was the most peaceful man I had ever known. He did not get sick often. He did not cry much. He disabled you with the look in his eyes. I had help from friends. I never knew sisters. I had no one else to share my love so I was laser-focused on my boy. 

I always thought he needed a sibling. Someone else other than me to build memories of his childhood with. A sister maybe. One whom he would show the ways of growing, the tricks of kid’s games, teach how to navigate the TV remote et cetera. What I was not going to put him and I through was the here-now-and-gone-after episodes my life had experienced. His fragile heart would never recover. It was hard enough for me to imagine what I would say when he, later in life, inquires about the man that sired him. 

I had transferred all my big dreams into him. I would live to make his dreams come true. And I know the day will come when, after he has come of age, will leave and cleave to his partner. The two will become one and I will be one again – alone. But that will be different. He will not disappear like mist. And I will know where to find him when I need to. Or at least I imagine I will. 

*******

Damn these sayings because why did the wicked winds of time carry an old flame back into my life? I remember saying, ‘that will never be me.’ What was mine had left. My boo from when we were younger had been resurrected. I had made peace with being by myself. Why was it back, this flame? What did he want from me? At that point in my life, I had room for one man – the one I carried and brought into this world. He had had a daughter. The love he left me for had not worked like a dream. 

‘I have not known happiness in a long time,’ He said. 

‘How long is a long time?’ I asked. 

‘The whole time I have been away from you.’

‘Serves you right,’ I thought. 

What, whoever coined that saying about loving and letting go did not account for, is that when what’s yours leaves and returns, it is not a given for you to take it back. I have come to believe that when what is yours leaves, it ceases to be yours. It is not that it never was, it just no longer is.