My Dear Daughter

Dear Baby, not so baby anymore. You’re gonna go through life; a path that will be rocky at some points. There will be curves, hills, and other obstacles along the way.

You will look around you and you will realize that your life is a lot different than most of your friends. You will probably start to wonder why. Why things happened this way and not any other way. Perhaps, you will love it, perhaps you wont.

Life isn’t always perfect. We as daughters or sons, want to have a life where all of our needs are met. We want our caretakers to give us everything we ask for. We don’t want homework. We don’t want a difficult teacher. We want our caretakers to say yes to everything we want. We want life to be easy, because easy doesn’t require much effort. Easy is EASY. But you see, if easy were that easy, then there would be no fun. There would be no enjoyment on daily activities, there would be no skilled people, in a sense: Easy would be boring!

You are now at a stage in your life where life shouldn’t be easy. But it shouldn’t be too hard either. Your path should be introducing you to the recipe of LIFE. The world can teach you the recipe, but you need to do the work to succeed at/in it. You have a long way to go. As you walk through this path; you’ll be introduced to choices; good and bad. With experience you’ll learn to identify which are good and which are not. You will make mistakes -we all do! But you will learn. You’ll learn to distinguish what friends are worth keeping, what family member really has your best interest; you will learn to walk away and you will learn that sometimes taking chances is far more rewarding by any means, than not taking any chances at all. I can’t be there every step of the way, and just so that you know my baby, mommy never left you; I have been there with you along the way just like I always will.

13 year ago, I was at a crossroad with a little girl. Life hadn’t been fair, but i did what I thought was best at that moment. Mommy was very sick -- in her head-- and needed help. I couldn’t drag an innocent baby along my broken path and I couldn’t bring you along the miserable path I had chosen. You were safe with grandma and grandma promised she will take care of you until I got well. I have been well for 10 years now, mommy is finally sober. But there was another factor I had never taken into consideration; the pain I would cause you if I took you away from grandma. If you ever think I never hurt that you didn’t live next to me, that’s because you were not next to me every night I cried myself to sleep. You see my baby, a mother’s love isn’t just about holding on to your children no matter what. Sometimes, a mother’s love is also letting go of my ego and know that before my love for you, your emotionally well being came first. You seemed so happy with grandma. I, too grew up with my grandma, and I knew if I had been taken away from her I would have been destroyed. I was weak, maybe a horrible mom, but I didn’t want to hurt you. I know you have forgiven me, I have been so honest with you. --maybe I’m a horrible human being-- but I don’t feel like I am. I am a human, I do make mistakes all the time baby, but day by day your existence is present in my life. You mean the world to me, and mommy is here with open arms. I will not fight for you at court; I do not think that this is the best way to prove my love. You know I love you because I always tell you. This is my truth .

So for you my baby, when you go through life, just know that just because you don’t live with your mom, doesn’t mean that you don’t have a mom. Life will teach you that things happen for a reason --I am still trying to figure this one out, why this happened to us-- but God never forgets about us. Trust me when I say this. Many times I asked myself why God had allowed me to go through some harsh trials before you were even born, but through it all God’s been good. He never forgot about me. And He will never forget about you either. The wrong choices I made, and the consequences I paid were never sent from Him, it was me who had decided to go that route. Blaming my circumstances and everyone else around inspired me to continue to make more of the same mistakes. As you can see, life can be tough when we choose a tough path.

I know you know that you are not alone. I know you know that I made mistakes. I know you know about my past. and I know you know that I love you. I just want you to know one more thing: God is never too busy for you. He is always there, He is always watching and He is always waiting for you to reach out to Him. There will be times that I won’t be available or that grandma won’t be available... and you will feel alone. Just know that you are not ALONE. <3 I love you Joanna. Thank you for teaching me everything you have taught me these past 13 years.

Con mucho amor,

tu mama Carmen