This week, as I was editing this set of family photos, I came across one that made me stop for a few seconds and think more deeply (which is not as common of an occurrence as one might think!). This is a photo of a mother and a daughter, and I don’t have much to say about it except this: The mother/daughter relationship is one of the most complicated and beautiful relationships in the whole world. It can be a source of both unexplainable joy and immense pain.
A few years ago, my mother sent me this poem on Valentine’s Day. It brought me to tears both then and now, and I want to share it here. I think that as complex and difficult as things get with our mothers at at times, most of them feel this way about their daughters (even if they’re teenagers) 🙂
By the wonderful e.e. cummings: