The Motherhood Letters No. 10: Café Sisterhood

Dear Forrest,

A week after Donald Trump was elected. I walked into the café, ready to order my cappuccino, and there you stood.

Rather than sharing café small talk, you asked how I was doing and I knew you didn’t want to hear, “Fine.” You didn’t want to hear an answer that superficially informed you of where I was going next. You wanted to know how I was really doing, and it showed in the warm presence in your eyes and the spaciousness in your heart.

That’s just your way. You really care.

I had been numbing myself. Until that morning when I saw you, hiding in my own escapist ways from the shock of what had just happened on the national stage. Suddenly, in your presence, the tears emerged. Standing there by the espresso machine, I cried out some of my despair. It needed to happen.

Within minutes, thanks to that moment of opening, I made a decision that led to the biggest adventure of my life so far. My family and I would move to Sweden for a year to be near my husband’s family in his native culture. Your open heart, attentive eyes, and deep capacity for listening were the container I needed to really hear what wanted to happen. Looking back now, almost two years after that café conversation, I see that it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

I’m not putting you on a pedestal. You wouldn’t accept that from me. I’m not saying you made the decision for me.

I’m saying that in your strikingly beautiful presence, I was able to live my truth in a way I might not have been able to without you. Every mother needs this kind of presence in her life.

Think about it. Right now there is a mother reeling from last night’s drunk abuse, somewhere in America. Right now there is a mother whose child is dying in a hospital bed. Right now there is a mother so lost and lonely she doesn’t know if there is a way out. In fact, there are millions of these.

All these mothers could use a presence as spacious and honest as yours. Thank you for being the way you are. May all these mothers  find — now — what you showed me that morning.

And may I be a sliver in life, for others, of what I find in you.

In deep respect,

Jessica