Full Circle...

I began my journey to motherhood in March of 2006, two years and four months after having lost my own mother.  When I lost my mother, my heart felt as though it had been punctured and its essence was seeping from my soul.  From 2003 until I met my daughters, it was as if I was listing constantly to one side, deflated and barely breathing.

During those years of waiting for our adoption to culminate, I could not seem to catch my breath; each time I tried to breath deeply and remind myself that the wait would one day end, the wait lengthened and sucked the life right back out of me.  But, alas, I am my mother's daughter and she did not raise a quitter.  I persevered and made good on the commitment I made in my heart to a child known only to God.  (And, as it turned out, God saw my unwavering will to carry on and shined his especial favour upon me in the form of two resplendent twin girls.)

While I can breathe a little easier having made it to my very first Mother's Day, that breath would be so much sweeter if my mother were here to see the radiance of my daughters' smiles.  However, my soul is revivified when I look at these tiny little beings and see so much of her in them, despite their having no degree of consanguinity to her.  Zoë has my mother's lips and quiet resolve.  Poppi has her easy, exuberant laughter and an abiding love of music.  They both have her gentle spirit.  They also share one other very important quality with her, she too was a twin.  There are so many other similarities that I can only believe that they are the proverbial bread crumbs being left for me by my mother to ensure that I know that she walks with me as I endeavor to find my way along the pathway of motherhood, which as we all know is not always clearly marked.

As I reflect on the short time during which I have been a mother, I conclude that I am grateful that my daughters have taken my perforated heart and patched it with their sweetness and lilting laughter.  I am grateful also to a mother who loved me unconditionally and left with me with a legacy of well taught life lessons, each of which I will teach to my daughters under my mother's watchful celestial eye.