When I was pregnant, I felt like a whole person for the first time in my life. I was unaware that I was only a shell of a person until I felt life within me, until after I had something to compare to my pre-parent self.

My husband and I loved this new human being from the moment we knew of her existence – even before, really, because we wanted her so.

Then I gave birth and felt incomplete again – as though she was always supposed to be a part of me, and it was not fair that I had to separate from her. I guess that was just preparation for the gradual movement from mother to independent self that a child must experience in her life (and a mother must experience as well). But it was hard for me to let go of my connection to her during birth, and it was no easier when she left for kindergarten, or college.

Of course, life is a learning process for mothers as well as their children. I understand that though our daughter necessarily was separated from me at birth, she was not removed from me. I will always be her mother. And I will always love her so much that my gut hurts.

Today is not our daughter’s birthday. Today is not Mother’s Day. It is just an ordinary day in the life of a mother who wants to climb onto the peak of the highest mountain and release to the entire universe all the love that she feels for her child so that everyone can feel the euphoria that this mother feels. Look, Universe, she is here! Are you listening? Are you as in love with her as I am? Are you as in love with being alive as I am?

There is no universe without her.

She is the universe.