LILLIE

 

“The price I paid to exist was a mother who couldn't love me. My karma was a daughter made from stars.”

― Jessica Jocelyn

I never thought I’d become a mother later in life, or that the role would consume me with a love so profound, so irrevocable. Growing up, my mother was everything to me—a beacon of love, even amidst the complexities I didn’t fully grasp as a child. As I grew older, I began to see the shadows that had shaped our relationship, the hidden struggles we never spoke of. By the time I reached my twenties, I could hardly imagine myself as a mother, questioning whether I could ever nurture life with the tenderness I had longed for myself.

Then, at 32, married and clinging to a fragile sense of stability, I was blessed with my son. His arrival transformed me—he became my world, eclipsing all the worries and ambitions I once held dear. The dreams of my youth, the endless possibilities I had once entertained, faded as I devoted myself to meeting his profound needs. Navigating the world alongside a child with unique challenges required more than I had ever imagined. And with little support, I gave everything I had to ensure he had everything he needed.

But that sacrifice wasn’t without cost. Slowly, I felt my own identity slip away, consumed by the relentless demands of motherhood. It weighed on my mind, my heart, my marriage. The life I once knew unraveled as I poured every ounce of myself into him. The toll it took was immeasurable.

When my marriage crumbled in my mid-thirties, the future I once envisioned—the family I dreamed of—felt like a distant echo. Motherhood, once my entire existence, seemed like something I might never experience again. I had lost so much, and the possibility of bringing another child into the world seemed to drift further and further away.

But at 35, when I met the love of my life, a spark reignited inside me—a small flicker of hope I thought had long since been extinguished. For a moment, it felt as if the universe was giving me a second chance, offering a glimpse of a life I had almost given up on.

Then, a year later, the final blow came. Infertility. Perimenopause. The diagnosis was a cruel confirmation of everything I feared. I grieved not just for the child I might never have, but for the dreams I had slowly let die over the years. The ache was overwhelming, the kind that presses down on your soul. But in the heart of that grief, when it seemed like I had nothing left, I found something I never expected. I found God. In my deepest heartbreak, I discovered grace. A quiet faith began to grow in the spaces where hope had been shattered, carrying me through the pain with a strength I didn’t know I had.

And God delivered. At 38, He guided the most beautiful of stars to join me. As I sit here, cradling my baby girl in my arms, I am overwhelmed by the miracle of it all. A child I never thought was possible, conceived naturally when I had stopped believing in miracles. Her tiny heartbeat is the music of a life I never thought I’d get to hear. Her delicate fingers, wrapped so tightly around mine, remind me that life—no matter how uncertain—still holds unimaginable beauty. She is my impossible, my prayer answered in ways I couldn’t have foreseen.

She is my love story, written not in the way I had planned, but in a way that proves that the most extraordinary things often come when you least expect them.