Alma

Despite being a bit younger and from a different country, you were like me:

An independent working single woman. Curious and interested. A caring person. Maybe a bit disappointed from past relationships.

Then, out of the blue (at least for me), you got: A partner, a marriage, a child.

It’s always so much harder to digest if long-term single friends turn into late mums at virtually the very last minute (much harder than the motherhoods of friends in the early 20ies or 30ies).

Feels like a deep cut inside, like a failure of just not having tried hard enough. As if it was a race, in which I’d never cross the finishing line.

And very often this finishing line separates us. An invisible segregation between those who have and those who don’t have.

But you were different: You knew. You still remembered how it felt to be on your own and to be longing for a partnership, a kid, a family.

So, when we met that summer, you told me about this radio programme you had listed to; about this woman who spoke out loudly and firmly about involuntary childlessness for whatever reason.

Back then, you, the mother of a daughter, had reached out to me, the childless-by-circumstance woman. It felt so good to finally be heard and understood and acknowledged.

It was you, who opened up the door to a whole new world for me, to a whole new tribe – showing me that I was not alone in my grief and sorrow, that there were so many of us out there; and that this community was getting louder and bolder, claiming our space within society.

For that – for your outreach, for bridging the seemingly huge gap between us – I am still so grateful to you. And I really treasure this valuable moment of understanding we shared back then, and which will always keep us connected.