I’ve worked in women’s health care all of my life- since before I even had children. And I was a single mother for about half of their childhood. Now we are estranged.

11 years ago I attended three Christmas Eve births, one at 2 Am, one around 11 am, and one around 9 pm, Homebirth, Birth Center, Homebirth… this means a lot of driving and logistics. And I still made it home to wrap presents until 4 am and fall asleep for a couple hours to be woken up by the shrieks of my happy kids Christmas morning before leaving for the next birth… that day. This was just one of the many thousands of days of doing my very best in all areas of my life- of working harder than I thought possible but with total commitment.

When I think back to all the years of sacrifice and devotion and love; I used to be really mad at them and sorry for myself…. It felt like such a waste, since they stopped speaking to me. What was it all for- if it’s all gone now?

But now I look at myself clearly and not through the reflection in their eyes of me or in the ugly smears of this matricidal culture (that shames working mothers as much as it shames stay-at-home mothers- expecting us to do it all with less and less resources).

Them not seeing me or loving me back is not a reflection of me or my love, it’s a reflection of them. I love abundantly. I am intensely loyal. I work hard. I gave all of myself.

Our job is not to make people, even our children, love us. Our job is just to love abundantly. I did that. I still do that. It was a hard won soul-battle to keep breathing sometimes, but love won.

I miss them with every breath. But I’ve come to realize that I miss the versions of them that I used to know. Part of me will always be frozen as the mother of the last age when they still loved me. I am here and waiting and wanting to love them, but they do not reach out. My children are alive, but I do not know them. And even if they ever reached out in the future or responded to my messages, I would have to get to know them again. We are strangers now.

And that gruesome, awful, painful fact is NOT a reflection of me. I am lovable, despite not being loved by the people that I loved with all my body, mind, heart and soul.

Rocking their tiny bodies to sleep, nursing them to toddlerhood, hand-grinding their baby food, bathing, dressing, holding their little hands, and keeping them safe. Singing them to sleep and praying for them at night. Repeating myself over and over, patiently cleaning up after small and big messes, over and over and over. Reading aloud and making food and taking them to school and on vacations. All of this is proof of the kind of person I am.

I am not privy to all the reasons why, they all, at different times, choose to abandon me. I do not know why they wouldn’t answer my phone calls, and refuse to see me. I do not understand why I am dead to them when I still breathe the same air, but I do finally understand- it’s not me.

This hard-won truth almost cost me my life. I am here, because love won. I fought so long and so hard at the alter of my own sacrifice. I was almost lost to self-inflicted wounds of the spirit. It was while I was homeless and alone that I finally realized I had nothing left to loose. In this place of brutal freedom and anguish, my love battled for me. When there was no one else to choose, I finally choose myself. It took years to come to this peace.

My hope this holiday and every day, is that all of you can choose yourself. You have nothing to loose. Down at the bottom, in the inky, blackness, when life feels meaningless because you lost the people that give your life purpose, you really only have 3 choices- 1.Keep begging people to love you- until you alter your own DNA and loose yourself entirely. 2.Become a lump of coal- crushed by the cold and impervious world. Or finally, 3. Love yourself the way you tried to love others.

I read somewhere that grief is just love with no where to go. And that must be why it feels so awful. Stop holding all that love inside- let it flow. Life is about flow- things that get stuck tend to break. Don’t wait (like I did) for the damn to overflow.

If you let go to love- it feels a lot like more pain initially, but if you stop stopping yourself, your tears do have an end; the pain does have a limit. After you’ve cried yourself empty, you can really see the hole in your life that you’re left with.

You can not, and should not try to fill the hole- that looks a lot like addictions and other unhealthy coping strategies. But what you can do is fill the solid ground around the hole with a lot of beauty! I mean really to nuts! Glitter and confetti and a disco ball if that’s your thing. The solid ground that’s left is you- all you. No one can take it away, and only you are responsible for it.

Take yourself on dates, experiment with art or cooking or whatever- do things repeatedly that spark even the smallest joy. And then do it again and again…. Eventually, you will look around your life and there will still be a hole, but there will also be a playground and movie theater, and maybe a dance floor or whatever you built just for you.

I hurt every day – but it’s a dull pain now, the way I imagine amputee victims feel fantom limbs . The ‘mother-me’ aches, but she’s gone. I mourn her, but I don’t search for her in the rubble anymore. Because she is not all of me. The artist and the chef and the writer and the lover and the friend ‘me’s’ are too busy living and loving this gorgeous live we have created.

So happy holidays to everyone- I love you- let love win.