Emily Thomas

Each Mother's Day,
I read the posts.
How motherhood taught leadership.
How toddlers taught negotiation.
How becoming a mother revealed purpose.
How being a mother taught love
like no other life experience could.
As though the lessons
belong to one path alone.
I am not a mother.
I never got to be.
Life has taught me too.
Through curiosity.
Through responsibility.
Through devotion.
Through loving deeply.
Through letting go.
Through surviving loss.
Have I not loved?
Have I not found purpose?
Have I not been changed?