A mother gives birth to a beautiful baby boy.
She names him with care after a person who has meant so much to her.
It's a name with great significance to her.
She loves him, nourishes him and keeps him safe.
She watches him grow and protects him from harm.

She loves him through all his missteps and faults.
She is proud of his achievements and marvels at his existence.
She talks about him with pride and love to family and friends.
He beams at her often and calls her "The best Mum in the whole world".
She basks in his love.

She disciplines him and tries her hardest to be fair and show no favour when she knows he has done wrong.
She supports him through his toughest times and is always ready to pick him up if he fails.
She watches as he moves away and into the fold of a strange new movement.

The day he drives away, the physical tug in her heart is as real as it was the day she first held him to her breast and stared at him for so long the nurse had to take him off her so she would sleep.

She waits for his calls & tries to think of ways to keep him talking.
Holding him on the line for as long as she can.
Desperately avoiding the topic that has formed a solid division between them.
She hangs up wondering what she can do to help her obviously distressed son.

She watches his car pull into the driveway & catches her breath when she sees the reality of her tall, handsome & athletic son emerge.
But there is a change.
It isn't just in the clothing, which includes a short purple skirt and wide brimmed straw hat garlanded with flowers.

It's the stiffness when she embraces him and looks into his eyes.
The hostility she sees when she says his name and tries to usher him indoors.
The defiant daring on his face as he looks at his Dad and waits for a reaction.

She knows him so well and can't help thinking the whole "coming home" scene has been rehearsed and contrived between him and his strange companion who she instantly dislikes.
She knows her son has sensed this dislike and stored it away.

She cries when he leaves, hurt by his accusation that she is the reason he can't come home.
Because she calls him by his beautiful name, that means so much to her, and acknowledges him as her son. Her son that she has been through so much with.

Because she won't accept his new look and self identity as her new reality.
Because she desperately loves her son and has never had a daughter.
This person who knows her intimately, but who she does not recognise at all.

She joins Twitter and finds his account.
She follows him and is relieved that at least she can have some kind of connection with the son she loves.
But he blocks her when he finds out she's liked a Tweet from his favourite childhood author.

She sets up a new account with a fake name and follows him again.
Desperate to have some connection, even if it's surreptitious and only one way. A shallow connection, but as close as she dares.
She reads through his tweets.

She is sucked of all emotion when she sees how he describes her.
With one word he has demolished her confidence that she knows her son, and that he loves her.
He talks of not being accepted.
He calls his beautiful name a "deadname" and refuses to acknowledge it.

She is told her beautiful much loved son no longer exists.
He didn't die.
He disappeared.
She is not allowed to mourn.
No-one is allowed to acknowledge her pain at losing her son.

She is admonished because she is unable to instantly love this strange person that has appeared in his place.
She is hurt by his refusal to allow the best Mum in the world the time and space to grieve the loss of her beautiful son.

It is a death of reality.
A death felt deep in her soul.
A death she can't share.
A death that this new person takes great pleasure in.
A death that is rejoiced in by people that never knew her son.

@threadreaderapp unroll please