Between Bruises and Blooms

Every year,

the fifteenth of July

asks my heart

to do two impossible things

at once.

It sings

“Happy Birthday”

to the boy

who made me a mother,

whose laughter

fills rooms

I once thought

would always echo empty.

And quietly,

beneath the wrapping paper,

the candles,

and the smiles,

it remembers

the pregnancy

that could never find

its way home.

July 15, 2024.

An ectopic pregnancy.

Hope

taking root

where it could never survive.

Love

meeting loss

before it ever

had the chance

to become

a memory

held in tiny hands.

Motherhood

doesn’t begin

at birth.

It begins

the moment

your heart

makes room

for someone new.

I had already

made that room.

Already imagined

who you might become.

Already loved you

without condition.

So every July fifteenth,

I celebrate

the son

who changed my world,

while quietly

honouring

the life

that changed it too.

Joy and sorrow

have never asked

permission

to share a calendar.

They simply sit together,

side by side,

teaching me

that a heart

can carry

a birthday candle

in one hand

and a memorial flame

in the other—

and somehow

keep them both

burning.