My sweet boy,
If I could fold this whole messy world into something soft and simple for you, I would. If I could rewrite time so you never felt the weight of being the kid whose mom wasn’t always there to pack his lunch, sign the forms, show up early, stay late—the kid watching other adults do the things I wanted so badly to do for you—God, I would’ve done it a thousand different ways. I would give anything to be the kind of mom that could’ve given you a childhood with no missing pieces, no awkward explanations, no “sawyers mom” mythology.
But life didn’t hand us the easy normal version. We got the street-edition—cold pavement, heavy nights, and choices that were never really our choices at all, but choices made on our behalf. I had to realize a hard truth, that because of the bad stuff that happened over my life and some of the choices that I didn’t get to make on my own (and some that I did) and so many of the hard lessons I had to learn the hardest ways, that because of those things the most loving thing I could do for you was to stay away. Not because I didn’t want you. Not because I didn’t miss you every second of every day. But because I didn’t want you breathing in the same smoke I had to walk through. I didn’t want you waking up inside the chaos I was trying to survive. I didn’t want you to inherit the trauma that makes the streets stick into your soul and become all that you know. You’re so beautiful and bright and I didn’t want the darkness to be allowed anywhere near you.
You deserved better than the places I know too well. The cold steps. The shelters. The alleyways and stairwells and parking garages.The abandoned houses that aren’t even close to safe for humans to be inside it let alone live there. The rooms full of adults who were supposed to be helped. But nobody knew how. The noise. The danger. The weather. The things no child should ever see. I carried all of that so you didn’t have to. Every time I stayed away, it wasn’t rejection—it was protection. A mother wolf circling the perimeter, keeping her cub out of reach of the hunt.
But don’t think for one second that distance meant absence. You were in every breath. Every decision. Every reason I kept going. Even when the world treated me like I was invisible, you kept me anchored. Even when my hands were shaking from cold or fear, I held onto the thought of you. You’re the quiet voice in my mind that never stopped saying: keep going, I’m always with you. Never give up mom.
And sometimes it was like every day I was holding my breath and it was getting harder and harder to keep holding it and by Tuesday I thought I wouldn’t make it any longer. but then Wednesday comes and I could finally take a deep breath and breathe again long enough to hold my breath for another week.
And that’s why I’m starting my business. Every piece of work I create, every truth I finally say out loud, every story I turn into something real —it’s all part of building a life we can be proud of. I’m trying to make something solid out of all the years that felt like collapse. To prove that the time we spent apart wasn’t for nothing; it was the groundwork for something better. All those broken chapters were there holding up a future where we don’t just scrape by—we help other people climb out of those same shadows I meant to protect you from.
I want you to know this, and I want you to know it without a shadow of doubt: you were never the reason things were hard. You were always the reason I tried. You are my mini-me, my mirror, my reminder of everything good I still have in me. Your heartbeat is the one rhythm that never left mine, even when the world made us walk separate roads.
One day, when you’re old enough to look back with your own eyes, you’ll understand that a family can fall apart in a thousand places and still be held together by love. You’ll learn that being broke doesn’t make anyone less deserving of dignity, and that people without homes aren’t people without hope—they’re just people stuck in storms they didn’t choose. You’ll see that love isn’t always the happy clean version where someone stays close; sometimes it’s the version where someone steps back so their child doesn’t face the same damage. And maybe then you’ll realize that everything I did—every hard choice, every mile of distance—wasn’t abandonment. It was me giving you the kind of life I couldn’t build at the time.
But until then, just remember this:
I am proud of you.
I am sorry for every moment I missed.
I am grateful for every moment I still get.
And I am yours—always. In ways no distance, no system, no hardship can touch.
Your heart is my heart.
We’re stitched together in ways the world can’t undo.
Love,
Mom
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