I have a big story that I am not a writer. I have started many articles when feeling something and then don’t not publish them, but this one is so close to my heart and it flew out of my hands while sitting in the plane. I want to share it with the world regardless of how well it’s written as it might touch you to offer a bridge between you and your mother.

I am on the plane that has just left Germany and my heart is full with feelings, tears running while I am writing crouched in my seat. A woman from Sri Lanka next to me asks me if I am ok. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I am sad and I am ok.’ Today I leave with 5 weeks of journeying and healing behind me. I leave with your love in my heart, a healed heart and a broken open heart.

I listened to you. I had room to hear you, to feel you, the pain you experienced, the burdens you carried for the ones that came before you. I listened and I let it touch me. This time I had space, I had done my work and it worked. I decided to lay down the weapons before I came, to get to know who you are.

I stayed with you in your mini apartment that you did not want to show me. I watched you flower and unfold out of your loneliness into aliveness. After years on your own you slowly woke up a bit. You did not want to let me in at first, too scared I would only hurt you again, tell you how much you failed and what was wrong with you. I had to be a mother myself before I could have any idea what you might have gone through.

I have been convinced my whole life that you did not love me. Why else would have my childhood been so difficult, such a nightmare? In my story love equals devotion, presents and held spaces, holdings, cuddles, breakfast making, lunch boxes, Christmas baked goods to take to school and much more.

Today an hour before I left I asked you, ‘was I welcome? did you want me?’ Thinking of the many emotional healing processes I have done to welcome my being more into this world, to find more of a yes to life. You said, ‘of course I wanted you. You sat on my belly the moment after you were born, strong, loud and alive from the very beginning.’

What part of me has wanted to believe my whole life that I was not wanted? What lessons did I need to learn to now have it in my bones that I was wanted by you, to know that you loved me in your own unique ways?

When I opened a space for you to speak about love and what your experience of love is, something deep in you started to melt and move. You began to speak and out tumbled the suffering of a woman that became a mother very young, very scared and alone. A woman who got her baby taken from her. A woman that worked very hard to make sure her two daughters had food and clothing. A woman with no support or connection to other women or mothers. A woman with a partner lost in his own addictions. You fought for my life.

While I was listening to you sharing it all, including the horrors you experienced about a premature baby (an experience that repeated itself with my first son), my heart opened to you. I got to see you for the first time and I am sorry for all those years I had no room to do this as my pain was too big and my rage took up all the space.

I saw a mother that did not know how to be a mother and yet here she was with two little girls doing her best. Did I not do that also, my best each time with my two sons?

I got to see you in your world, what it was like for you. Then I shared some of my story, how my rage took over in my marriage, how I created a prison for myself, how I lost my way as a mother, how I gave myself away. And then we cried together, sad that neither of us was there for each other, as women as mothers. I cried about the birth of my second son — how I had longed for you and my sister to be beside me and celebrate the beautiful son I had given birth to.

These last few days I have seen you laughing. You have such a great sense of humour. More often you started to walk without looking down, your head more up. You woke me up each morning and I could tell how glad you were to have me near. Also how scared you were, that it might go wrong between us, that keeping opening more old wounds could make things worse again.

Slowly we got to know each other, meeting each other as women. I let you know that I will call you Barbara from now on. I let you know that I have withdrawn my expectations of you to take care of me, to host me, to do anything for me, and that I want to meet you now as you are. I let you know that the biggest gift you can give me is to share your little savings with yourself, to take yourself on adventures and send me photos so I can celebrate with you the moments of being awake. That you owe me nothing. And I felt the sting when I said that

Being with you I got to hear the voices that are in my head. How you speak to yourself, the way you hate and make your body wrong out loud, the different ways you call yourself stupid. The endless complaints that you do so unconsciously all day long about everything and nothing at all just out of habit, your focus is most of the time on all that is wrong. I had been told by friends in the past that I did this, and changed this only a few years ago.

I see how you are waiting for others to save you and rescue you. I notice the way you have learned to talk in the voice of your father and your brother. I notice it’s not even your voice that I have in my head.

Gosh, many times I almost got hooked by you. But I stayed curious enough, wanting to sense the roots of your voices. We found ways through. I started setting boundaries when my cup was full with it all. You sulked and drew back and it lasted for a few minutes, then connection returned as you and I both cared for the space too much, knowing with the short timeframe war was no longer an option.

So we moved, shared, and sat by each other. I set up Spotify for you, and put you a little sound system in so that you are able to play music. I went with you in your day to day life and made some proposals. I shared how my life is now with you, my sons’ lives and who they are now. With you grandchildren grown men, you shared your sadness of not knowing them, not speaking their language, that I did not want you close to them.

We had many calls with Jason and talked about him and who is and what my life is like so far away. We ended our journey the last night I stayed with you with a tour through my home, with Jason walking us around. Jason’s love for me touched you as he said thank you for the gift of me. He called his mum in Cherrie for a short call to spontaneously meet another mother. Love started flowing.

One day I dug a hole in the field with you next to me, surely wondering what weird thing now Sybille ? I made a funeral for the lessons I have now learned and will no longer take with me when I leave my homeland this time.

And on the last day, three women spent a day together, sharing the journey as mothers and as women. Wherever these women went in the Sauna palace people eventually left as the expression of aliveness was too much. Myself, my sister Petra, and Barbara, my mother. The three of us are rather noisy, not well-behaved beings.

You moved around for the first time naked with us. It was unfamiliar, but there was a bit less shame about your body in the trust you could practise this while being with your two daughters, two other women. Practising to rely on us, to trust that we want to be with you, that we will not talk behind your back or get pissed with you.

I loved seeing you unfold and laugh and listen. I saw you being inspired and that is where I will choose to energy toward and blow air into. I will be back in a year and if you get ill before that I will come.

This morning I shared a real hug with you. I felt your gift coming with me, the gift of your love, your love coming with me. My love for you meant I could allow you to love me. What a journey I had to go through to come to this.

Dear Barbara, thank you for letting me into your home, into your heart. For sharing your story and your emotions, for trusting me enough to open up, for letting me know I was welcome, and for seeing my aliveness and going along on the crazy ride of healing together. I sense your love for me now, and I feel love for you. No more holding my love back.

I have arrived home now after travelling for four days. I shared my journey with you on my way, and you sent me a video of you. I saw you practising taking photos first and then the video, and I celebrated with you each time. Taking these little steps, moments where you are able to pause the voices that are so strong in you to put yourself down.

We had a call, you, me and Petra tonight, and I see your ease to talk to us both. I’m sensing that something has changed for good, something is different.

You were just this little bit lighter. While I was travelling home, you wrote, the flat is empty, and I miss you. And for the first time, I also noticed I missed you. I miss being with you. And as much as it hurts, and I’m sad, I’m glad to have the experience of what it’s like to miss you, as it’s a new experience for me. The pull to be in connection is real and there, and I feel fear because I don’t know how to. I don’t know how to fit you into my day-to-day life that seems so full with things to do, to catch up on, and with responsibilities.

I sit here, and I read this article to Jason tonight, and I hold you close in my heart. That’s the space you have now in my life, and I don’t know what the rest looks like. I miss you mum. I had to be 49 to be able to have this experience.