Becoming a Mother
Chapter 6 of The Woods Behind Me
Hannah came in 1997 and rewired something deep inside me.
Not instantly. Not magically. But undeniably. She was vibrant and bright-eyed and alert in a way newborns aren’t supposed to be, and the first time she cried, something in my chest made a decision without consulting me. You stay. You fight. You live. Because she’s here now.
I was young — too young by most people’s standards — but already older inside than my years would admit. I’d survived storms. I’d rebuilt myself from pieces that barely fit together. I’d learned sarcasm as armor and humor as survival. I carried my grandmother’s blueprint through my bones like a second spine.
None of that prepared me for Hannah. She didn’t need the recovering version of me, or the scared version, or the girl who had spent the last few years figuring out how to exist again. She needed the strong one. The sharp one. The one who showed up.
So that version of me showed up. Because she was watching. And she needed me to.
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