Mystery Mama {ode to my daughter's first mom}

Mystery Mama, I wish you were here today.
Today of all days, you should be here. Our daughter turns 3 today.
Watching her open gifts and boss her brothers around...you should be here. You should get to take a turn chasing her on the scooter she learned to ride last week and giggling when she dances in her new sunglasses to Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Mystery Mama, we haven't forgotten about you.
I think of you often, and we talk about you. At night, when I'm rocking her and loving her, I wonder if you think about her, too. Do you walk the same streets now that you did when she was a part of you, and wonder where she is? Do you remember her tiny, beautiful face? I long to show you pictures. Videos. Firsts and Seconds and Hundreds of moments that you missed. I want you to know this magnificent creature that is the daughter we share. You are important to me. To our child. Our family.

Mystery Mama, sometimes I'm angry with you.
She needed you, just as much as she needed me. She still needs you, so very deeply. We all do. We need to know you and for you to know us. We need to fill in the other half of our family tree.
I want to know many things, like her family history and her great great grandparents names. How much she weighed when she was born and what you labor was like. I want to know how you felt about her.
And I want to know why. Why why why. It will always be lingering. The "why" question that we long to have an answer to.

Mystery Mama, I'm thankful for you.
You are special and beautiful and the amazing child we share was crafted perfectly within you.
I long to reverse time.
Reverse my genes, my genetics, my ethnicity.
I long to be you.
To be the exact one who was given the blessing of this child from the very first moment.
But clearly, I wasn't the perfect one to conceive her. Carry her. Channel life to her.
You were. Mystery Mama, you were the perfect one God chose to bring her into this world. And that's a gift we can't ever begin to thank you for.

Today, we celebrate her and we celebrate you, Mystery Mama. Even when tears fall as we wrestle with the reality of your mystery, we will honor you and we will not forget what you have given to us.