What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence (What We Don't Talk About Book 1)

by Michele Filgate

What a gift it was to be so loved.

To talk about her love for me, or mine for her, would feel almost tautological; she has always defined my notion of what love is. Just like it’s meaningless to say our ordinary days were everything to me, because they were me. They composed me. They still do. I don’t know any self that exists apart from them.

My hunger for her feels endless. I want to love her more fully, by loving the woman she once was. Perhaps it’s a way back into the womb, past the womb—seeking these stories of her, from before I was born.

We get so used to the stories we tell about ourselves. This is why we sometimes need to find ourselves in the stories of others.