I read an article some years ago about the physical connection between mothers and their babies. Beyond the obvious, it presented the details of a scientific study that proved a lasting bond at the cellular level. It’s called fetal microchimerism, which is a science-y way of saying you gave part of yourself to me before you were born. Cells that even now, decades later, help make up my skin, my blood, and the marrow in my bones.
Those little cells mean more to me today than any other time of year. Maybe because this is the day when I remember the entirety of your life happened inside me. You were alive, heartbeat strong, until my body couldn’t hold you anymore. Then you were gone.
Except for those persistent little cells.
When I think about this, I realize how much has changed in the last twenty-three years. How much I’ve changed. Back then I pushed to keep you present, your name spoken aloud regularly. Worried if people forgot, you might somehow disappear from having ever existed. Like I would be forced to let you go in a deeper way than I already had.
These days, I feel a strange comfort in the quiet knowledge that part of me isn’t me at all, it’s you. I carry those little cells with me like a wonderful secret, one that I choose to share from time to time. But mostly I just hold it close, thankful it’s mine. That you’re mine.
That’s enough for me today, on your twenty-third birthday. Your little cells, and your brother’s weekly visits are just about the only things that make sense to me. I don’t have to look far to find chaos and confusion in this world, but the part of you still alive in me helps quiet the noise.
Happy Birthday Elena, my shining light. You are, and always will be, my favorite girl.
Carrie Joy(ful) 