Remembering Naomi

My dearest Adèle,

I’m writing this instead of saying it, because some truths are too hard to speak aloud—and once you’ve heard it, you may need to hear it again. I haven’t the time left, nor the strength, to explain it twice. I hope you still love me when you have read it, as I have loved you for all these years. You have been my life’s joy, and until this cancer takes me to meet the Lord, I shall keep on loving you—even from Heaven, should the good lord see fit to let me in.

You asked me this morning if babies remember the sound of their mother’s voice from the womb. I didn’t answer, because I did not know. You see, my child: Though you call me “Momma,” and I call you my child, only love has made that true. You started out your life with a different mother who loved you as much as I do and you deserve to know about her—and how it is that I came to become your momma instead of her.

This morning, when you asked me I just touched your belly and told you your baby will be beautiful—just like you. I should have spoken up then. I should have spoken up so many times. But I couldn’t. I wanted to protect you from this grief. And I wanted to protect myself from mine.

But the truth is you’re grown now, Adèle. Carrying your own child. And before he or she comes, you deserve to know what came before you.

The truth isn’t clean. It doesn’t sit still. But it’s yours. And it’s time.

My life’s greatest regret is that I minded my own business before you even came to us that Autumn; mid October, as I recall.