DEAR BIRTH WARRIOR,

Yes I am talking to you mamas (and you, and you):

You who hoped and planned and dreamed for a birth as beautiful and as sacred as what you and your baby deserved. You mamas who dared to dream, and then dared to let your hearts break open when that dream didn’t come true.

Or worse: you felt as vulnerable as you can ever remember feeling in your life, but you didn’t feel protected.

Or you shouted as loud as your voice could carry, but you were not heard.

Or as matter how physically strong you were, no matter how hard you tried, how long you walked, or squatted, or waited, or believed, or believed, or prayed, or pushed your body to its limits and past, but it just WOULDN’T, or just DIDN’T — for you mamas whose baby was not able to be born from your body the way your deepest heart wanted him to be.

Dear mothers, YOU ARE THE STRONGEST WARRIORS OF ALL.

You are strong because you surrendered. You are strong because you fought. You are strong because you loved, and risked loving, and let love shatter your heart into a million pieces. You are strong because you faced your fear of dying. Worse (for you), your fear of losing your baby. BUT YOU SURVIVED. The subsequent grief, and trauma, and sadness that might follow make perfect sense. Grief is a process. You deserve to grieve.

Dear Mama:

Let that grief carve into you the way a river does through the bedrock. Let it wear the old parts of you away and away until your heart becomes a canyon. Beautiful, majestic and deep. Deeper than any other person could know, let alone imagine. An entire universe.

No one can ever map something that big, so the power that lives there is yours, and yours alone. It belongs to no one but you.

Go claim it.