Let's Row Together

Mother of the bride.

Sep 19, 2025

At eleven o’clock, Friday morning, September 19th, my daughter Maya is getting married.

For the first and only time, I’ll be the mother of the bride, standing next to her as I witness her exchange of vows with Matthew, her companion of nearly a decade, in a civil ceremony in Somerville’s City Hall.

I can’t pretend to know the wave of emotions that will flood over me in this happiest of moments for my daughter whom I’ve loved with every fiber of my being since the June morning in 1997 when we met.

That day she stole my heart.

She hasn’t returned it since.

My friend Stan Grossfeld, who will be with us to celebrate Maya and Matthew’s marriage, took this photo at the baby shower that friends Ann Mikols and Diane Caldwell organized to welcome Maya into my life and theirs.

When we met, Maya was almost nine months old. Days before, I’d turned 46.

I’d lived as a single woman for 16 years after my divorce after an early marriage that I’d soon realized was a mistake.

In an instant, I was Maya’s mom. Her only parent.

No joy in my life has been the equal of what I felt that day.

Our first hug happened on the second-floor balcony of Maya’s orphanage in China.

Our lives as mother and daughter began when a caregiver placed Chang Yulu in my arms in a small room in the orphanage in Changzhou, a city of five million people that is three high-speed train stops west of Shanghai in Jiangsu province on the eastern edge of China.

Maya didn’t cry, as babies understandably do, when my unknown arms cuddled her.

When my unknown face stared down at hers.

Instead, she focused her eyes squarely on me, as I locked mine with hers.

It’s impossible to know Maya’s emotions or recall the swirl of mine. Her eyes and my smile speak to me when I see this photo taken moments after we met.

Working with filmmaker Julie Mallozzi, we made this video to visualize my adoption of Maya. The video was shot by Jocelyn Ford, who worked with us as the videographer in China, for our book project, Touching Home in China.

That day I wrote in my journal, speaking to Maya. Here is what I said:

The moment arrives when you are handed into my arms, and as I hold you up against my shoulder I feel how strong you are, how well you can lift your neck. I kiss you and lower you to hold you in my lap so I can look at you. It is hard still to believe you are my daughter, but as we sit a while longer, you reach out to hold the leg of the soft white bunny finger puppet I brought to you. Very soon it is your turn to be examined by the doctor, and he declares you “perfect,” though when we talk through the orphanage later, moving through the two rooms of blue wooden cribs where you’ve spent your entire life, I see that you are hooked up to an IV drip on your right arm. I am told they are giving you antibiotics. They tell me you have a temperature and that is why they are giving you this solution. It makes me very sad to see you this way but the little bunny is right there next to you so I know you are not alone.

When you were on my lap you lifted your leg up and touched it with your hand, tugging it toward you. I took your foot and touched it to your forehead and when I did this you smiled and laughed; you must have thought this was such a funny thing to do.

After you were taken back to your crib, the nurse came to us and asked us to return to our baby the blue handkerchief that she handed me when she put you in my arms. The picture on your cloth was of a cat. What else would it be? [In Cambridge, Maya would meet our two cats.]

You are beautiful and strong and playful and I know we will have a wonderful life together.

I love you, Maya.

A day later, after I’d signed official adoption papers and attended a banquet with the orphanage director, finally I was able to take Maya back to the hotel, where I wrote these words about our first night together:

Back in our room, you refused to let go of me. I had to walk back and forth, back and forth, keep moving so that you would not cry. You wouldn’t let me put you down, so when I got tired, I walked us to the bed and so could lie there together. Once you had soothed yourself, you fell asleep after scrunching yourself next to my chest. We slept together that way.

For many years I’d struggled to overcome many doubts I had about my ability to parent on my own. It had been a long, bumpy road to reach this moment in China.

In my 1997 book, On Our Own: Unmarried Motherhood in America, written before I adopted Maya, I shared some of my uncertainties:

I wondered how my child might one day think about my decision to be a parent by myself. What if this child of mine might never have a daddy in her life? Do I really have the energy, patience and resources to raise a child on my own? Would I be able to supply the necessary discipline for a child who would have me as her only parent – and, at that, only during hours when I wasn’t at my job, earning money to pay our bills? During my childhood my mother and father each played big role in my life; each stirred ingredients into the mix that created who I’ve become. Which, if any, of these ingredients would my child miss out on if I did this alone? On my own, would I be able to compensate for them?

For 28 years and a few months, I have been Maya’s mom, her only parent.

I never married, nor did I date, not because I felt constrained by my life as a parent but because I had no urge to do so. Without the driving force of desire, the notion of swiping left or right was simply too much for me to take on. Nor did any spark of connection cross my path to fuel desire.

So, each day I did all I knew to do as Maya’s mom. All I’d learned from my parents and picked up in conversations with friends who were moms build my foundation. From there, instinct was partnered with knowledge from reading about parenting.

Were there times when I failed Maya? Absolutely, but when I did, I tried to learn from what I’d done wrong so I wouldn’t fail her again, at least in that same way. Usually, Maya was my best teacher. Through the years, especially recently, I believe I have grown better at being her mom by listening, even when words weren’t my guide. This is when I relied on cues delivered through our emotional connection.

I’m still learning how best to convey the abundance of my love to the most precious being in my life. And yes, I will fail, and again I will try to learn. Like all moms and daughters, we’ve moved through up-and-down cycles – from times when our lives synched up smoothly to times when the gears of our ever-evolving relationship required lubrication.

By the time you finish reading my words, Maya and Matthew will be married.

Join me in wishing them all the happiness they’ll find in sharing their lives and love. May they find in their union the strength of enduring love that will also help them move through inevitable times of grief and pain.