Motherhood – the anticipation, the excitement, the butterflies in the tummy
developing into a foot here, an elbow there.
From the moment you began to grow and move,
my bones and body knew you
busy and vibrant, loud and gregarious.
Your soul was intertwined with mine
restless, demanding, alive.
And then the day of arrival.
Blood, tearing, shock
a brutal initiation into the purest of love.
In the wreckage of my body I held you,
a screaming slip of life with hair as dark as midnight.
And I thought: this is forever.
This is the axis upon which I now turn.
And so we began, you and I,
the dizzying highs of first steps and fierce hugs.
Already the world felt fragile and dangerous.
And then the relentless tyrant epilepsy came.
The storm that raged without mercy.
Drug-resistant. Seizure upon seizure. Blue lips, sirens, hospital lights.
I became the sentinel at your bedside,
living in a permanent state of high alert,
ready to barter my life
for one more safe breath of yours.
Still, I fought to carve out light for you,
to prove that even in chains you could dance, laugh, live.
But then another thief came along, cunningly wearing a mask of love,
but he was cruelty disguised,
a man who built a controlling, violent cage around your fire.
He turned you against us and you vanished into his shadow.
I became a ghost in your life, watching from the distance,
my heart breaking in slow motion.
And yet you came back.
Fragile, fractured, but reaching for freedom.
I dared to hope. I dared to believe joy could return.
But hope is a fragile thing.
And that morning, the worst morning,
the silence was absolute.
No scream, no fight, no warning.
Only the stillness of death.
Epilepsy had finally claimed you for its own.
Now I stumble through the wreckage, my arms empty, my body hollow.
Searching for you in dreams,
in the echo of your sisters’ laughter,
in the quiet moments where grief sits heavy and unyielding.
I survive, because I must.
For them.
Motherhood was never meant to be this,
a future turned to ash, a heart broken with the pain.
They say grief is the price of love,
but this cost is monstrous, merciless,
and I pay it every single day
for the honour of being your mother,
my darling girl.
