The Road Home

by Kristin Harmel

I would be a stranger, too, a stranger to myself, for who was I if I was not Josiane’s mother? She had become a crucial piece of my identity, a segment of my soul.

Now, I wished I had watched Josiane every night when she slept, played with her every day instead of doing chores, savored those moments of brushing tangles from her curls while she tried to wriggle free, spared her every harsh word, left behind the petty worries of my days and realized how precious all the seconds were.

“Hearts have a way of healing when necessary.” “Will she remember me?” I asked over the lump in my throat. “You are a part of who she is, and of who she will become,” he said. “There is nothing in the world that shapes a child more than a mother.” “But I wasn’t her mother.” “Of course you were, Madame Vachon.” “But you said yesterday that she was never mine.” He cleared his throat. “She wasn’t. But you were hers. And you will be always.”

“But please, let me hold them in my memory. Let me remember that I was their mother. But let me remember, too, that I still have a life to be lived.”

Motherhood never ceases, even through loss and pain, for to carry a child in one’s heart is to belong to that child forever.