7 years ago I became a mom. Just thinking about that brings tears to my eyes.
To think that I grew 3 babies inside of me, delivered them and have nurtured them for 7 years (my twins will almost be 5) still feels surreal. Where has the time gone? Are we raising our children “right”? Am I teaching them life lessons? So many questions you constantly ask yourself as a parent.
This year is going to be a hard year for me as a mom. My mom died when I was 7 years old from a brain tumour. She was pregnant with me when she found out and fought for 7 years to survive but her tumour won. She left behind 5 children, a husband, family and friends. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of my mom. Even when I’m struggling and having a bad day, I have to stop and think that my mom and dad still raised their children and carried on each day despite all the surgeries and hospital visits.
I keep thinking of my 7 year old daughter. The smile on her face when we do something fun together. The conversations we have together after we read books. The pictures she draws me that says ” I love my mom”. I missed out on a lot of this behaviour when I was 7. It is not fair that someone that young could lose their mother. So I do whatever I can to live a healthy life. I’m doing whatever I can to raise my daughters to live a healthy life. If by chance my life is thrown a curve ball, I’ll do my best to dodge it or deal with getting hit. Life is unfair sometimes and I have learnt to try to focus on the positives versus always on the negatives.
I don’t have a lot of memories of my mom. I don’t know if I was just too young when she passed away or I buried all the sad feelings deep down and have blocked my memories from my childhood (yes, I have been to a psychologist and have worked through my mother’s death and can talk way more openly about it now than before). I do have two favourite memories of her.
- We used to go and feed the chickadees in the winter time together. I remember the smile of both mine and my mom’s face when the birds would land on our hands and listening to their singing. I do believe in guardian angels and every time I see a chickadee I know that my mom is around keeping me and my family safe.
- My mom used to write poetry. She wrote such beautiful poetry and it had a theme of the seasons. I found a copy of one of her poems that had “To Rachelle” on the top and “Love Mother” at the bottom in her handwriting. I cherish that piece of paper. To have something that my mom wrote is so special. I guess being the youngest of 5 children and everything she had going on with her brain tumour, I didn’t have a lot written in my baby book! So seeing her writing and those simple words mean a lot to me.
So this brings me to the whole point of my story …. every year on my daughters’ birthdays, I write a letter to them . Not email, not on my computer, a hand written letter to them. I let them know what they were like in the previous year. Thoughts and emotions from a mom’s point of view. I don’t make it elaborate. I don’t write on fancy paper or put stickers on it, because that’s not me. I want my daughters to know who I was through these letters … just in case I die and don’t have a chance to say good bye to them.
I know, it’s an awful way of thinking, but I didn’t have a chance to grow up with a mom. I wish I would have had the chance to learn so much from her. The questions I would have asked her. The stories I would have loved to sit down and hear. The sound of her voice telling me a story or sing me a song. A letter that would have let me know what kind of child I was. Knowing what kind of mother she was and the struggles or happiness she felt being a mom.
So this is my gift to my 3 daughters, a letter on their birthdays. I hope that I’m around for 100 years to write them a letter every year because seeing how much they have grown in the past 5 to 7 years have been amazing …just imagine what all the letters will say every year they get older!
My name is Rachelle and I am the owner and founder of Momentum Health & Wellness . I am devoted to inspire and promote health and wellness to individuals and families. I want to create a community where people feel motivated to share their wellness journey and to encourage one another to be positive role models in their home, at work and in the community. I offer prenatal fitness classes, postnatal fitness classes, fitcamp, personal training, injury rehabilitation, and corporate wellness.
Contact me for more information on the services I provide!
Rachelle@momentumhealthandwellness.ca