Dear First Born Child

8/6/24

Dear first born child, 

My sweet baby, you have changed everything. 

You’ve created a new me, just as I patiently created you. 

Simultaneously we grew one another. We worked in sync to modify cells, change systems, and establish connection. 

You and I. We. Us. 

Together as one for so long, until the time came to be our own extensions of the team we have been. 

Waxing and waning with the forces of what surrounded us, we established new connections, interacted with bigger systems, and modified our “selves” with each passing day. 

We existed with a blindness to the constraints of our timeline, and yet so enriched by its intricacies. 

We have taught one another that while seasons are finite, our connection is not. 

You are a force that pushes me, regardless of the space between us. 

My heart keeps you with me everyday, although we remain separate in this earthly plane.

Thank you, my first born, sweet baby, for being the catalyst of my expansion and my knowing. 

Thank you for being the soundtrack of my parenthood. 

Thank you for being the keen eye on my wounds and the shaman of my healing. 

I love you, dear child.

Dear child, my first born child, you have changed everything. 

Unconditionally, 

Your wounded mother 

This letter is not only a take on my grief in the life of loss after Malcolm, but it is a take on any mother who has experienced the loss of their first born. Whether the loss was because of their out of order death or because of distance and boundaries, I wanted to honor the story of the mothers out there who suffer with the ongoing grief of losing this life-changing first born child in their lives.

Sending love to you all.