Happy Birthday Mercury

Dear Mercury,

Happy 22nd birthday. I hope you are doing well. We have not seen you since you were 18. Do you remember your 18th birthday? I took you and Eli to an Indigo Girls concert. It was directly after the fall of Roe vs Wade and the feminist energy and anger was high in that arena. It felt wonderful to be surrounded by strong, powerful, righteously angry feminists.

I wonder what you are doing now. I know that you and Eli got married a few months ago. What happened to my daughter that I raised to be an independent free thinker? Your world seems so small now, your high school friends have left you. You looked positively miserable in the few wedding photos that I saw. What have you done?

I don’t really expect that you will ever come back, though the door is always open if you wish to. You never even sent a card to Ravi while he was ill or talked to him on Facetime. You did not attend his funeral. I grieve both Ravi and you. My grief for you is more ambiguous. Your brother is dead. You are alive. Both of you are very far from me.

22 years ago you danced into my life and the angels all applauded. During my pregnancy with you I had not sense of your gender. My first words when the doctor showed you to me were, “It’s a girl!” I was stunned and delighted. I had a boy and a girl, both healthy, and I thought that life could never get any better. Though we had our struggles as a family, that time was sweet. You learned to walk at 9 months, spoke in full sentences at 1 year, and were reading fluently at age 2.5. The world was your oyster.

You have chosen a very difficult path. I want to remind you that the world is still your oyster. You have so much potential, and so much life left to live. The door is always open if you want to reach out. Though you claim that I am nothing but your “womb bearer”, I am still your mother. You share my DNA. We had you baptized into the community of Christ. There are some things that you cannot change, no matter how hard you try. If you reach out, you will find an open door and a listening ear. I believe we both need time and therapy to address what has come between us. I am more than willing to give you this time. Love, Mom.