Mariah and Caiden

To My Children — an open letter (poem)

I am writing you like breath between two storms —a confession, a promise, a map of the hard places I’ve been.

I got it wrong more times than I can count.

I made choices from a smaller, frightened place.

I did not know then what I know now.

For that I am sorry — with the deep, aching kind of sorrow that changes you.

You taught me how to be a better mother. Not by lectures but by living — by your fierce, quiet truths, by the ways you asked for things I did not know how to give. You pulled me forward whether I was ready or not, and I’m grateful for the hard lessons you didn’t ask to teach me.

I have never, ever intentionally hurt you. When I failed you, it was out of fear or ignorance, never malice. But knowing that some of my choices cost you peace—that cuts me open every day.

I carry the weight of that, and I am trying to carry it differently now.

It breaks me to be shut out. To watch you turn away because of someone who hurt us — who hurt you —is a pain I cannot explain cleanly. What is the point of family if we do not try to be part of it? What is the point of doing any of this if all I am in your eyes is a failure?

I am tired. I am furious sometimes. I am ashamed sometimes. I am also loving, always loving — whether you want it or whether you push it away.

I am a mother first and foremost, but I am a human. I have scars, and I have feelings. I am learning how to hold both. I know more now. I see patterns I missed.

I can predict hurt because I feel it like a memory in my bones. I wish I could go back and do everything differently. I cannot do that — but I can keep showing up, raw and real, and I can try to do better in the ways that matter.

Since you both wish me gone, I will not force my way into your life. But know this: my love does not evaporate because a door closes. It waits — not as a demand, but as a steady presence.

When you are ready to talk, to sit in the mess with me, to name the pain, I will be here — not perfect, but present. I want to ask you, not to blame, but to hope: Why would we throw away everything that could still be mended? Why not try — even in small ways — to be part of each other’s lives again? If family means anything at all, let it mean that we try, imperfectly, to stay.

I am sorry for the nights you cried alone, for the mornings I was absent in ways I should not have been, for the words I wish I’d chosen differently.

I am sorry that my mistakes landed on you. And I am sorry for every time I acted like I knew more than I did. Hear me when I say: my love is not bargaining or a plea. It is a steady, stubborn thing. It is my witness to you, to who you are and who you will be.

If you want space, I will give it. If you want to yell, I will listen. If you want to come home one day and start slow, I will make the time and safe space and the apology and the room.

I am not happy right now. I am grieving what we lost and what might have been.

But I am still here — trying, learning, holding on to the hope that we can repair a life together.When anger and hurt are louder than love, remember: love endures.

When you look back, I hope you see a mother who tried, who failed, who loved fiercely through it all.

Always —Mom