Foster Fridays: "An Open Letter to my Daughter's Birth Mother"

I know a lot about you, but I don’t know you. I’ve met you, spent time with you, but I don’t know you the way you deserve to be known. If I had to guess, I’d say that no one knows you the way you want to be known.

I know that you learned from a very young age that you had to lie, manipulate, and take advantage to stay afloat. The love you were given was conditional, the kindness you were offered had strings attached.  You now win someone over with sweetness as you determine the role they will play in your survival.

I know that the trauma runs so deep, that the only people put your faith in are the ones least deserving of it.

I wanted to scream at you when you didn’t reach out to take help being offered. Offered time and time again. Then I was reminded: you may not be capable of trusting the system, or the services, or me.  

I want to scream at people when they think they know you. When they give you labels. When they see the stigma and not the soul.

They don’t know you.

I don’t know you.

I know you love her. Our daughter. Oh, how I know. Because despite the lack of motherly love in your childhood, it is so clear when you look at her, or say her name that she has your heart. I know you have dreams and longings. Dreams of her first day of school, her first soccer game. Longings to cook for her, to take care for her when she’s sick.

So when I’m angry, tired, frustrated -this love you have for her- this is all I really need to know.