A letter to my daughter's other mother

This time of year can sometimes bring to the surface thoughts of absent friends or family members. Here, one mother writes an open letter to her daughter's other mummy on Christmas Day.

Dear Mummy L,

Our beautiful daughter will be three on Christmas Day. You’ll probably try not to think about her. I’ll try not to think about you. No doubt we’ll all fail.

She’s doing wonderfully this year. Thank you for the will power you must have found from somewhere while you were pregnant. The hole in the heart mended itself. The brain scan was awful; her crying ‘mummy don’t let them’, as her eyes rolled back in her scull, but the results were good. We gave up hospital appointments after the hearing test. She screamed so loudly at the poor doctor that none of the other children would go in after her. They sat wide-eyed in the waiting room thinking there must be some terrible reason for her to yell as if she was being tortured. But then maybe there’s a quite good reason to hate doctors when you’ve spent your first three weeks in the world alone in an incubator, withdrawing from crack. You know better than me how hard that is, and - judging by how well our daughter is doing- you did better than some professionals said you did.

Look after yourself. No, that’s not me being nice, it’s entirely selfish. I’ve got lots of little questions so I’m sure she will too, like: who’s my father? What nationality is he? Do you know?  She can’t get these answers from your gravestone and certainly no one else seems to know.

Please look after yourself. This is an entirely selfish request. If you could only have yet another baby we might get it. Social services like to put siblings together. You might not be exactly the ideal mother but the way you just drop the baby and fly away makes life very convenient for lots of us, in the short term.

Please, please, look after yourself, we don’t want to trip over you on the streets. I was glad they sidestepped a few rules letting us live in the same district but it’s not an ideal way for a girl to meet her mum. 

Please, please, please look after yourself. It really isn’t pleasant, while enjoying your daughters’ giggles as she unwraps her stocking, to think about you waking up in ’no fixed abode’ missing all the five daughters that you’ve lost. Frankly it upsets my Christmas. It may even drive me to the sherry. We all have our ways of escaping.

Okay. I’ll do you a deal. I’ll shove you to the back of my mind all day until four-thirty. Yes, the time when you gave birth to her. At four-thirty she’ll blow out the candles on her cake.  It’s the first ever present she’s asked for- candles on a birthday cake. She’s at that lovely age when she isn’t yet greedy for big things. When she blows the candles out I’ll tell her to make a wish. I’m not sure she understands the concept of wishing for things, and I’m not sure why I’m so keen to teach her since we all know the pain of wishing for things we can’t have.  I just can’t help teaching her these things of dubious worth from adult life. Anyway, I’m hoping she wishes for a pram for her dolly as they’ll be one, tied up with a red bow, ready to be wheeled in. Her grandmother (the only one she knows) has bought her one- and spent the autumn hand-making all the coverlets. When our daughter puffs out her candles I’ll make another wish for her as well.  I’ll wish that you get well, I’ll wish that I get to share her with you one day, so that she gets to know her tummy-mummy, as everyone should.  I’ll whisper in our daughter’s ear ‘I bet Mummy L wishes you a happy birthday.’ You see? I already try plant the seed of you in her mind, in little ways.

Please keep alive, for her sake. Get angry with the drug that sent all your childhood wishes up in smoke. This is an entirely selfish request. You’ve got lots you could help us all with and are no good to any of us dead.

Love Mummy S

Are you living apart from your birth parent or parents? Have you adopted and do your children have contact with their birth families? We'd love to hear about your experiences.  And if anyone would like to give a donation to charity at Christmas please consider Addaction. www.addaction.org.uk 0207 251 5860

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