By Kaya Mulcahy

To the women I love,

Whenever I’ve needed help and support and a bloody good hug, I’ve imagined you there in front of me.

Knowing you’re there has helped me through so much. I want to thank you for the influence you’ve had in my life; you helped me so much in a time when I didn’t even know I needed it. But you saw me and saw how hard things were, and you brought me into your home and heart. You showed me how things could be.

Thank you for teaching me how to be a strong woman.

I’ve become a strong woman throughout the years, and God it’s hard and painful. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know the right thing to do because then I wouldn’t have to choose. But I’ve never felt alone: I am strong, and I’ll always carry some of your strength with me.

I’ve had some hard years since I saw you last. My own illness hit me hard during my studies, and I still don’t know how I got through it all. My whole body would be screaming in pain when I came home each day after taking three breaks to get up the single flight of stairs to my front door – my daily Everest. Sometimes, I had to physically lift my legs onto the next step.

Every night I would think I can not do it again, but every morning I did. My determination to be a scientist narrowly won against the pain and exhaustion each day. I don’t know how I studied or focused on anything while being in that much pain, pain written off by doctors because I was a ‘young woman’ and ‘these things happen’, but somehow, I did. And I did it with you by my side every step of the way.

Recently I’ve had to make some very hard choices. I decided that I couldn’t in good conscience create a child to pass on my illness and pain to. Watching my mother and experiencing it myself was painful enough.

After an awful year of investigations, including my partner and I analysing my genome ourselves to find the culprit gene, I found that I couldn’t carry children without great risk to my body, a risk I desperately wanted to take. Over the year, my partner’s mental health declined, as did his treatment of me. I withstood it because that’s what I thought strength was. Even when he hit me, in cold resentment at what my body couldn’t do, my heart was with him and his pain.

Yesterday I made the hardest decision I hope I ever have to make; I left the man I love and chose to love myself more. As I went to step out of the door of the flat we shared together, turning my back on my chance of a biological family, on a man who was my best friend and partner for four years, on the home and life we had made together, I hesitated. My heart and limbs felt too heavy to move.

It was the strong women in my life who were holding me up and taking that first step with me. And for that, and for every other impossible step I’ll take with you by my side, I thank you so much.

Thank you for teaching me how to be a strong woman.

So much love,

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