Life, Lessons & Lylah

I began writing to my daughter before she was born.

I knew the very moment I had conceived her, which seems hard to believe, but it was true. I remember it so distinctly that I literally spoke out loud to God in that moment.

I made a promise to Him—with knowing but still uncertainty—that if I were pregnant, I would do anything and everything in my power to take care of her.

I promised to love her with all my heart, to always put her first, to protect her forever, and to make sure that I taught her everything I had learned and always remained willing to learn from her.

As I write this moment from the past, looking back from then to now, I feel chills running through my body remembering it. I understand even more now how precious the gift was that I was being given, and how deeply I somehow understood, even without understanding, how much she would shape me.

How much deeper she would take me into myself.

How much she would teach me about love.

She has been the very love I had always hoped for—a love that is so big, so fragile, and so strong all at once. The kind of love that can somehow hold all of those things together and create something so precious that it changes you forever.

I hadn't even had my first ultrasound before I knew so many things about her.

I knew she was a girl. I knew what I would name her—Lylah Rosa. And before I ever found out that she was, in fact, a girl, I had a dream about her.

She was around three or four years old, and I remember vividly her dark brown eyes and beautiful curly hair. I felt like the dream was telling me that she had chosen me, that she was ready for me, and that I had been given a glimpse of the miracle of her before she was mine to hold.

I don't know how to explain these intuitions I have other than to simply say that they are a part of me. I have always had this gift.

For much of my life, my sensitivity and the way I see and feel things felt so overwhelming and confusing that I sometimes felt it was almost more of a curse to feel so immensely.

But now, I find it to be one of the things I thank God for the most.

Other than my daughter, who will always be the cherry that tops anything, it is one of the gifts I cherish most deeply.

Because I have come to see it as my soul guiding the way through the unknown and helping me every step of the way.

It is why I have always felt, since I was little, that I was born for a reason. That God made me special so that I could use the love and gifts He placed within me—not only to help myself, but to help others and live with the purest intentions.

With my daughter, all the things I knew ahead of time I chalked up as motherly intuition—which is real, and easier for people to understand.

But I knew what it really was.

I began writing letters to my daughter right away, wanting to gift them to her one day as a collection of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and memories of her life that she may not remember but I certainly will never forget.

Her name, Lylah, is primarily of Indian origin and means playful, which is the very essence of her soul. When I looked deeper into the meaning of her name, I found other descriptions that felt almost too perfectly suited to the little girl I was already beginning to know.

I found a poem written specifically around the way I chose to spell her name:

L is for life, that you live so well.
Y is for youthful, your eternal look.
L is for luxury, the luxury of your smile.
A is for activities, for you have many.
H is for hug, give one today!

And then I read this:

Your name is your destiny, heart’s desire, and personality.

It described Lylah as someone ahead of her time, intelligent and bright, a master builder whose heart's desire is to lead rather than simply follow. It described someone full of life, uplifting, inspiring, lively, witty, and charming, with a strong sense of herself.

She was only a baby when I first read those words.

Now she is seven, and I can see so much of her in them already.

Maybe that is part of what still amazes me most about becoming her mother. There were so many things I seemed to know before I could possibly have known them. I don't pretend to understand where that knowing comes from. I only know that I have learned to trust it.

Maybe I don't need to know.

Maybe some things are simply meant to be felt before they can be understood.

There is a quote by Dr. Shefali Tsabary that has always reminded me of the relationship I share with Lylah:

“The relationship we share with our infant can only be described as a deeply intimate energetic dance in which two souls unite and destinies merge.”

That is how motherhood has felt to me.

Not simply like I was raising another person, but like two souls were somehow learning from one another as we moved through life together.

And another of her teachings has stayed with me just as deeply:

“To understand that life is a wise teacher, willing to show us our higher self, revolutionizes how we live and how we parent.”

I think becoming Lylah's mother changed the way I understood this.

I began to see her not only as someone I was responsible for guiding, but as someone who would constantly reflect things back to me and invite me to become more conscious of who I was.

When I became a single mother, I made a very intentional decision to remain completely single for the next four years. There were many reasons for that choice, but one of the biggest was knowing that Lylah was still so young and that, in so many ways, I was the person she depended on every single day.

Her father and I had separated when she was around fourteen months old, and the years surrounding that separation were not easy. There were difficult circumstances I could not control, situations I could not always shield her from, and moments when I had to keep moving forward while carrying my own emotions alongside the responsibility of caring for her.

Being a single mother was never simply about doing everything myself. It was about being the person who had to keep showing up. The person making the decisions. The person comforting her when she was afraid, figuring things out when I didn't know what to do, holding space for her feelings while learning how to manage my own, and trying to create a sense of safety and stability even when life around us did not always feel stable.

I knew I wanted to be intentional about the way I raised her. I began studying conscious parenting, reading, taking classes, and constantly learning—not because I believed I could become a perfect mother, but because I wanted to understand her, understand myself, and become more aware of the ways I was shaping the person she was becoming.

I am also incredibly blessed to work for myself and from home. For the first couple of years of her life, I was able to have her beside me while I worked. I did clients' eyelashes while she played nearby. I would stop to change a diaper, feed her, clean up vomit, comfort her when she cried, put her down for a nap, or hold her while trying to finish what I needed to do.

It wasn't always graceful. It was exhausting. There were days when I felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained from trying to hold everything together.

But I made it work.

And I thank God for that every day.

We have struggled financially at times, and there have been seasons when I have wondered how we would make everything work. But I have never wanted struggle to become the story I tell about our life. Somehow, we have always made it through. Even when we had almost nothing left, we had each other. We had love. We had a home. We had another day to figure things out.

And we have never been alone.

I feel so deeply blessed and grateful for every soul who has been a part of this journey with Lylah and me.

Whether someone is still walking beside us or was simply someone we passed by for a moment, they have all mattered.

And I have always wanted Lylah to understand that.

That people matter.

That kindness matters.

That the smallest interaction can mean something.

Sometimes that simply means saying hello, asking someone how they are, listening to something about their life, smiling, or waving as we pass one another.

These things and moments are what matter most to me.

I don't want her to grow up believing that success is measured by what you have, how much you accomplish, or whether you are better than someone else.

I want her to know that who you are matters.

How you treat people matters.

What you do with the heart you have been given matters.

And perhaps this is one of the greatest lessons I have learned through becoming her mother:

I don't have to win against anyone.

I don't have to prove that I am better.

I don't have to hurt someone because they have hurt me.

I don't have to manipulate, control, or make someone else feel small in order to feel powerful.

I can simply choose who I want to be.

I can treat people as equals.

I can look at another person as a soul worthy of love and respect, even when I don't like their choices or agree with them.

And when something is unhealthy, I can walk away without adding more pain to it.

That is the kind of woman I want Lylah to see.

Not a perfect mother.

Not someone who never struggled.

But someone who chooses her character even when life gives her every reason to abandon it.

And then there is Lylah herself.

Everything is for her, Lylah Rosa.

She is my hype girl.

She is the girl who not only brings the light, but brings the sparkle and spice with it.

She is everything I am and everything I could only aspire to be.

She is my inspiration.

She is the perfect balance of sweet and sassy. She is kind, thoughtful, and enduring while also having a personality built to entertain.

She makes me laugh harder and more than anyone ever has.

But don't get it wrong—if you cross her the wrong way, she is a force to be reckoned with and will quickly put you in your place.

Her personality is magic.

Pure gold.

Anyone who witnesses her sees it right away.

She is even the kind of child who somehow draws people toward her. She has received gifts from complete strangers—sometimes something as simple as a $2 bill—simply because they felt drawn to give something to her.

There is something about her that people feel.

And I feel it every single day.

I can see how I have taught her and how those things have shaped her.

She has amazed people with her manners, grace, maturity, and loving heart since she was a toddler. Now she gets praised by adults, teachers, counselors, and others for how kind and thoughtful she is, how well she listens, and how naturally she responds to situations in ways that help other people.

Her teacher once told me that she was the kid who would see a friend, or even someone she didn't know, and if they fell or got hurt Lylah was always the first to go right up to them, offer a helping hand, and talk to them to make them feel better while all the other kids kept playing or walking by.

I am so proud to be her mother.

But mostly, I am simply proud to know her.

I am proud that I am raising a child who honors herself and others in the same regard.

And perhaps what makes me proudest is that from the time she could talk, she has had an unwavering confidence in who she is, what she likes and doesn't like, and what she thinks.

She doesn't easily change because of the influence of others.

She stands confidently in what she knows is right and in who she is.

It took me thirty-six years to find that for myself.

Thirty-six years to finally claim my own power, stand firmly in my beliefs, and become comfortable in who I am.

To witness that spirit coming out of her from the very moment she could talk, and to watch it continue to grow stronger, reaches somewhere much deeper than pride.

It makes me look at my own life differently.

Because I can see that while I have been teaching her, she has been teaching me, too.

She has shown me what it looks like to know yourself before the world has had a chance to convince you otherwise.

She has reminded me that kindness and strength can exist in the same person.

She has shown me that you can be soft without being weak, confident without being unkind, and strong without needing to control anyone else.

And she has given me the privilege of watching a little girl become exactly who she was always meant to be.

That is what makes my heart say:

This is the beauty and reason for everything I do.

And there is another part of motherhood I have had to learn that no book, class, or intuition could have fully prepared me for.

I cannot control everything that happens to my daughter.

I cannot control how other people treat her. I cannot control the choices other people make, the ways they may disappoint her, or the moments when people she loves may fail to show up for her in the ways she deserves.

There have already been things she has experienced that I would have given anything to protect her from.

I have watched her carry fears that are far too big for a seven-year-old sometimes. I know there are things that have stayed with her, things that sometimes find their way into her dreams and into the places she is still trying to understand.

And as much as I have wanted to take those things from her, I have had to learn that I cannot.

I can love her.
I can listen.
I can believe her.
I can hold her when she is afraid.
I can teach her that what someone else chooses to do does not determine her worth.
I can help her find her way through what hurts.

But I cannot live her life for her.

And perhaps one of the hardest lessons of motherhood is learning the difference between protecting your child and trying to control the world around them.

There have been things I could not stop, people I could not change, and circumstances I could not control.

And yet, somehow, through all of it, she has remained herself.

She still laughs.
She still plays.
She still loves deeply.
She still speaks her mind.
She still knows what she likes and doesn't like.
She still reaches for people who need help.
She still carries that light and that spark that made me fall in love with her before I ever held her.

She has her fears.
She has her struggles.
She has already experienced more than I ever wanted her to experience.

But those things have not taken away who she is.

And watching her remain herself while learning how to move through the things that have hurt her has taught me something I could never have learned from parenting books.

I cannot always protect her from what happens to her. But I can help her know that what happens to her does not get to decide who she becomes.

I don't know what life will place in front of her.

I know there will be more moments I cannot control. There will be things that hurt her, disappointments I cannot prevent, people who may not recognize the beauty in her, and experiences I wish I could take away.

I wish I could promise her that none of those things will ever happen.

But I can't.

What I can promise is that I will keep reminding her of who she is.

I will remind her that she does not have to become smaller because someone else cannot handle her light.

That she does not have to abandon herself to be loved.

That she can trust what she knows inside herself.

That she can be kind without allowing people to mistreat her.

That she can love deeply without losing herself.

And that whatever life brings, she will always have a place where she can come back and be fully herself.

Because Lylah has already taught me that motherhood isn't about creating a child who never gets hurt.

It is about helping a child know who she is deeply enough that when life hurts her, she does not lose herself inside of it.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts she has given me.

I thought I was going to spend my life teaching her how to live.

Instead, she has spent seven years teaching me how to live more fully myself.

She didn't just become my daughter.

She became one of my greatest teachers.

And somehow, before I ever held her in my arms, I think some part of me already knew that she would.