letter #6

cross posted from my ecdysis

excerpts from Letter #6

Dear Veronica,



....Dr. Liu, in his ever strange ways, seems cheery when I call him, asking him what our next step should be, "Well, just wait until day 35 of the cycle and take a pregnancy test. If you're not pregnant, we'll just up the dosage."

In other words, as he has said it before: quit worrying.

But I am worried.

The face I put on for others is a face of hope and optimism. The words come out of my mouth as I say that I will not be devastated if I cannot have biological children, but the truth is, my darling daughter unborn, I am afraid I will slip into a darkness that will shade me for the rest of my days if that happens. The reality is that life is given to you and there are portions of it which you can exercise control. Most parts, though, are handed to you, as is, and what you do with those parts, what you choose to create or act with it, is entirely up to you. I have trouble coping with that reality.

Someday, I hope, you will sit next to me and we will go over these letters together. I'm sure I will need some prompting about what I was thinking at 29 years of age, and I hope that these words will open a door of memories that will help guide you in your path of choices.

I want to include a picture with this letter. This is a picture of me, your old Mama at twenty years young, with another little girl. Her name is Veronica and she is the little girl you are named after. Taken in 2000, Veronica, now, is around fourteen years old and probably still in barrio Nueva Vida in Managua, Nicaragua.

Back in the old college days, I decided to live in Nicaragua for three months and work in areas that would challenge my ways of thinking. Nicaragua - Veronica - succeeded....


....I want you to remember something, my child, in case you ever forget yourself: all children are created equal and therefore you will all grow into women that are equal. This world will tell you different. It will tell you that since you were born in a certain country with privileges, education, and industry, you are worth more. The world will tell you that your place in society is measured by the size of your wallet, the space of your house, the shine of your car, the interest rates of your stocks, the gleam of your hair, the smell of your breath, the shade of your skin, the mobility of your legs, the speed of your mind..........


....There is nothing greater in this world than the measure of what you will do for liberation and for how far you will go to bring a sense of peace to the places that will never know the quiet of stars because their skies are filled with the noise of bombs and bullets.

I make you sisters and gently remind you to care for one another, even if you never meet. Even if you are separated by everything and you find nothing in common, you are sisters. You are binded by my realization that I cannot sacrifice one without sacrificing the other. You need each other in every sense of the word survival.....

please read the entire incredible letter here