Dear Ehren: A promise

Dear Ehren,

You are amazing. You are smart. You are brave. You are precious. You will never know the life I knew. I will be here for you until my very last dying breath, and I will always protect you. I will never forget that my primary duty in life is to protect you. I exist to keep you safe. My choice to have you as my child means that everyday, I will make the best choices I can for you to have a safe and healthy life.

I want you to know your worth. I want you to grow up feeling loved. I hope you always feel like you belong to your family. Yesterday, I realized these are the things I didn't have. These are the things that I can never get back. You'll one day grow up to know your parents as middle-aged adults. You won't recall the struggle that is the first year of parenting. You will never witness years of self-abuse I  experienced as a result of a childhood that was demoralizing. You will never know years of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of adults that your mother trusted. You will never know what it feels like to be denied. You will always be mine.

I am sure someone else is reading this thinking "she can't guarantee that." Son, know that I will work tirelessly, until the end of my days to ensure that you never endure any of these situations. These are situations that are NEVER acceptable. These are situations that you can never fully recover from. I want your heart to be full of dreams and your head brimming with ideas. I have battled as an adult for the past decade to move beyond years of abuse, and realized that I may never be whole. I will never recover the innocence of a child. I may never be able to be reprimanded at work without crying. I may never be able to handle a hand on my shoulder from a colleague. I may never be able to accept a high-five without flinching. These are the things that I can ensure you won't have to endure. I intend to slowly unwrap and share the abuse I've survived, at the cost of relationships and privacy, so that you can truly understand how brave, courageous, strong, and incredible I, your mother, am.

I promise to always love you. I promise to always protect you. I promise to break the cycle of abuse. I love you more than you know now. If you choose to have a family one day, you will understand this love, and I hope that you will thank me and love them even more than I love you.

Love always,

Mama