Dear Daughter

 How do you spend your days? I often wonder this. You, who I knew so well, whose precious smell I breathe in each days for eight golden years, are now a mystery to me. Across water, in another country, your body changes, the bones of your face knit together in new and splendid ways. 

Who are you now? You are always you of course. Are we born with our own esence? I believe so and thus I know that although you change and grow, you are always you and in this way you are always known to me. 

‘Why did I choose you to be Mummy?’ you once asked, perhaps age three, bent against me in the liquid moments of slowness before sleep. You were afraid to fall asleep alone and would often want me there to hold your hand as you fell into the unknown, the land of dreams. You held onto me, as though I might catch you if you should fall. 

I read you fairytales. I love them still. I sew small creatures in their memory and in memory of the time together we knew once. I love Cinderella most of all, a girl who rises from the ashes, who energy from dank kitchen dust and lentil stream misery, to know true love and triumph. 

You loved Red Riding Hood. You dressed as her with a shopping basket of goods. You were a collector, magpie hearted like your mother, drawn to bits of coloured glass and filled your pockets with twigs and bits of grass and calling them your treasures. 

Look closer ar the world and you will find diaminds and gold in ordinary things. We both know this. 

You never liked to read Hansel and Gretel. ‘No no no!’ you cried and refused to hear the story of how they were left alone in the woods. You were afraid of getting lost. Perhaps you knew in your small heart what might happen, thst done children are taken and that they do not have an easy path to get home. 

I still believe in happy endings and I know thst you do too. I surround myself with magpie things. I will show them all to you one day. I love you so. 

Love Mummy