Mirror Me | A Mother's Love

Cora's Choice

Cora sits on the couch, breastfeeding her newborn. She feels lost, empty, and drifts into a daydream of someday feeling at peace within herself. Her kids are jumping around, playing, climbing on her as she sits still, trying to keep her composure. She feels overstimulated and touched out, but she knows they just want her attention. This may not be the best moment, but they're just toddlers. She feels like she's standing still in the middle of a tornado. Or is she just being a Debbie Downer?

With everything she's going through—postpartum recovery, surgery, and mounting mental stress—Cora feels she's moving through her days on autopilot. She tries to find joy in the small moments, but without any support, she's not sure how to truly enjoy life. She's in survival mode, stressed, and constantly battling feelings of failure.

Now, she stands at a fork in the road. Should she ease her mental strain by creating some distance from Esther? Or will her guilt over leaving her mother alone in this city hold her back?

Cora has a choice to make. Since she's not winning the lottery to relieve her financial worries, maybe moving a little farther away is her best option—to give herself a chance to heal and find stability.

She loves her mother; Esther is, after all, her family. And since Esther is, in her own way, trying her best, Cora feels she has no reason to cut her out entirely. But if she doesn't make a change, her mental health may never improve. Without that change, she'll never become the warm, calm, and emotionally stable mother she dreams of being.

As she cradled her newborn and pulled her other children close, Cora realized that sometimes love meant choosing herself first, so she could give her children the mother they deserved. The road ahead wouldn't be easy, but for the first time, she felt the stirrings of hope—a small, steady light guiding her toward the peace she had always yearned for.