Motherly yours

My name is Felicia and, because my name is Felicia, many have said that I should be happy. But it wasn’t always like this. Once, I went through something greater than I. Something that was called – at least, clinically – “postnatal depression with psychotic elements”. This doesn’t tell much about those years when I looked in the mirror and couldn’t find myself. Nor about the time I first held Aurora in my arms and I couldn’t stop looking at her long, black lashes. Nor about the milk bottles, shaken while I was crying aloud. Nor about how I was watching my baby from behind the bed’s net, thinking of how I would never be able to truly see her. Nor about how I attached myself to my mother, re-becoming dependent of her. Nor about how I wished I were anyone but myself – the florist from the neighborhood, the lady with the shopping bags on her shoulder, the beggar at the corner of the street. And, most of all, it doesn’t tell anything about how our relationship has changed during the last two years, how I began to love you, Aurora, as if all the fog had disappeared, as if the bed's net had been torn apart, and I could finally see you clearly. And yes, I will try, as much as I can, to be your woods and to be your river. Because no, man shall not live by bread alone, but also with the promise of beauty and of a truly miraculous change of mind.