Around the two-year anniversary of losing my mom  (aka her “deathversary”) I decided I needed to get serious about my writing. I’d written dozens of draft posts on an unnamed, unpublished blog. It was time to name the damn thing.

One day, while pondering this issue on my morning walk, a mourning dove appeared. I didn’t think much of it, except that I kept seeing this same bird every morning.

Mary Poppins communing with birds

I was like Mary Poppins with this bird. It didn’t perch on my hand but we shared a moment. This bird kept appearing—always ridiculously close to me—and would look me right in the eye as if to say, I am here to bring you a message.

Like all spiritual-but-lacking-religion-thirty-somethings, I googled the meaning of this.

It turns out that across multiple cultures and millennia, mourning doves typically symbolize the same things. Feminine energies and motherhood; hope and peace after loss. And oh, that sad but beautiful song? Ted Andrews writes, “[o]ut of its mourning, it invokes new waters of life. Its song should remind us that no matter what our life conditions, new waters and new life are still possible.”

Yes, This. I thought. This bird symbolizes my motherhood journey.

I finally hit publish on the blog.

It has been eight months since I hit publish. I can say with confidence that the mourning dove was right: I write about motherhood and grief, hope and healing that comes from loss, and my own rising feminine power.

And I’m convinced more than ever that new waters and new life are still possible.