By Lisa Leshaw 
When did we change, Mama?
Was it a moment?
When did I stop coming to you with my burdens and fears, and make room for you to come to me with yours?
When did I sense you needed more comfort and guidance than I did?
That it was time to present only my best side?
My confident, reassuring, everything is fine side?
So you wouldn’t have to worry needlessly, obsessively, like always before.
Was it when I first began to notice you struggling to ease out of your favorite chair?
Or the times you started forgetting our unforgettable mother-daughter memories?
Was it when you no longer called to ask me how my day was? What my friends were up to?
When you stopped holding my chin in your hand while you made an important point?
Or called to remind me to take a sweater in the car with me?
Could it have been during our last Scrabble game when beating me with a 7-letter word no longer held value?
When you excused yourself with leftover tiles of uncompleted words? The games’ and ours.
Gosh, how I loved being the I need my mother version of your daughter.
There was no safer space on earth. I could have stayed there forever had you not forced me to grow solid wings, assured me I could soar.
I still cherish every minute of being your daughter, even though time has chipped away at the roles we play. Molding them into a new partnership.
One I’m not very good at, yet.
Because I still want to be that OTHER daughter.
The come to you at any time to hold me daughter.
The my mom will know the answer daughter.
The no one loves you like you do daughter.
I checked with the library.
They do not have a section on mother-daughter transitions.
On how to navigate a life change with a language all its own.
We’ll figure this out together.
As we always have.
Only this time, I will lead the way.
by Charissa West 
by Mary Ann Blair 
by Amy Keyes 
