Valerie's Mother

Thirteen years ago tomorrow (April 6th) my daughter, Valerie was born. I was 19, jobless, living with my parents and scared to death. I had never even contemplated having children let alone having a real life. It all seems as though it was 100 years ago and yet hardly a day has passed in my heart. I've never thought of myself as the "motherly" type. I didn't come already programmed with a desire for children or any idea what in the world to do with one. But it just so happened that the first child I had was just the one I needed to help me figure it out. The night that Valerie made her entrance into the world was as ordinary as any other run-of-the-mill Wednesday evening. I am as ordinary as any other mother who's ever tiptoed through the halls of BMH.  But the world stopped turning - for a heartbeat of a moment when I laid eyes on Valerie for the first time and then it resumed it's spinning. I'm sure the moment was undetectable to anyone in the world but me... It was our moment, our first meeting. It was the blink in time that rearranged my world.


I don't know what, if anything I've given to Valerie by being her mother, but I know what having Valerie as my daughter has given to me. All that I've ever wanted or dreamed of being is realized because she's here. At the end of my life, if all I ever was was Valerie's mother - then you should know that's all I ever was meant to be.