A Letter to My Love // The SBD® Doula

My Love ~

The marking of Fathers day on the calendar reminds me afresh that you are worthy to have a whole day designated to honor you.

We have been through a lot; so much, you and I, that some of the events, circumstances and some of our responses to them sometimes – too often in fact – feel as though they stand between us.

The differences in which we reflect on our experiences and how they visibly impact us seem as though we are offering an exercise in polar opposites, and with each new difference, with each new misunderstanding, misinterpretation or misjudging of our reactions we seem to become even further apart.

Days of not knowing how to honor you while being true to this transforming role I have fade quickly into weeks and dare I confess months of feeling separated from you in a foundational and critical way.

They say that each child a couple has becomes a person between them, that it is harder for the partners to reach one another for all of the little people between them.

I say this may be true for living children as well as children not alive.

I interpret, display and perform my role as a mother much differently than you do yours as a father.

And too often, this can make me feel insecure, make me feel as though my actual wellness, my very value, is conditional upon your positively reflecting back to me that my interpretation, display and performance of my role as a mother is appropriate and accepting to you.

And too often, this can make you feel even further obligated to interpret, display and perform your own role as father in even more of the same manner that actually stirred my very insecure and conditional feelings to begin with!

And so you try to lock the doors, protect our home from negative intruders, forcing out the things that seem to disrupt sanity and serenity.

I love you and I need you to protect our home and family, from negative intruders who seek harm and destruction.

But, my interpretation, display and performance of my motherhood is not an intruder. I promise it’s not, even when it seems like it.

And, your desire to keep our home, family and life as safe and serene as possible is just what you do as a leader and protector, and I share with you now that I will work to see with fresh appreciation what was once an admirable, attractive quality in you and that, since the death of our baby, has become an area that I have been tempted to find blame, insecurity and as a condition to my own health and happiness.

I love you.

We are parents, and, we are parenting differently.

I am learning to see this, and I am learning to discover the goodness in it.

May you have a good father’s day, and may we both feel anew, the ease, wellness and delight we once held as we saw one another in fullness and in total appreciation for the uniqueness, intrinsic value and love that we each give to one another. May we discover the treasures that there are in our differences, and may we embrace the ways in which we have grown, and continue to grow, as individuals, as parents, and as a couple.

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Deosculate – Abide – Discover

If ever there were a little treasure map for you, darling, it would be this. If you ever feel lost on the journey, My Love, please just start back at the beginning. Come near to me, hold me and kiss me. Go slow. Abide in a way that is lingering, giving permission and offering patience. Then, I will be reminded that I can trust in your direction. I will not feel threatened that the path you invite me on, then, is a way to shrink who I am but will trust that it is the path for each of our greatest growth. In the end, if there is something in my journey that can use correcting or refinement or guidance, you will be more aware of the journey and have a clearer vision of the path by having and exercising the course of this map. And then, sweet Love, we will know what to do, together. Because together is what my heart desires, not just in spite of but because of our differences, and I give this day to honor you by making this clear. I love you.