I Found My Soul Mother On A Neighborhood App
My soul mother finally appeared in my late stage of life.
Twin Sails / Shutterstock My neighborhood was experiencing a string of car break-ins, and I was trying to get to the bottom of it.
I’ve always felt safe in our area, so when I walked out in the middle of the night and found someone had just ransacked my car, I got on the Next Door app to see if anyone else was also experiencing this. My neighborhood is pretty active on the site, so I sent a message about the car break-in.
As I was scanning through the different pages, I sent out another message that my husband was a licensed and bonded handyman for hire.
I didn’t expect that this one act would be something great for him. His business went wild with calls and messages asking for his services.
One lady messaged that she needed help installing an air conditioner in her apartment, so he went over there and worked on that job. When he came home, he said to me, “Michelle, you need to meet this woman. You and she have a lot in common.”
He told me how she was an accomplished singer and voice coach, but she was more than that — she’s a sound healer and does chakra work.
She loves astrology, mysticism, and has empathic gifts. She’s also a Reiki master. When he told me that she was planning to do healing work with hospice patients, I asked him, “Did you tell her I used to work as a hospice nurse?”
“Yes, I sure did,” he said. Each little bit of information he gave me about her was uncanny that she was almost exactly like me in our likes and interests, and our passion for healing others.
The next day I got an email from her, and she asked me if I’d like to meet her. We made arrangements to meet up. I went to the local nursery and bought her a plant. Then I drove to her apartment, climbed up the stairs to 3B, and knocked on her door.
Since I was a little girl, I’ve always believed the person who raised me wasn’t my real mother. I remember looking at her and wondering how I ended up with the wrong woman.
I had no emotional connection with the family I was born into. I felt like a stranger grudgingly thrust into a household that didn’t care about my welfare or safety.
Surely, I was switched at birth or stolen from my real family.
I was overly sensitive and took to heart the pain of the world. From a young age, I became parentified, to take care of my mom and my younger brother.
My “mother” piled all the household responsibility onto me — cleaning, cooking, taking care of my little brother, the pets, and her. I got her up in the morning, ran her bath, made her food, washed her clothes, and massaged her back and feet when she demanded.
I daydreamed my real mother was out there, and she was kind and loving towards me. This other woman who treated me like the maid couldn’t possibly be my mother.
I was always getting in trouble at home. I wasn’t a “bad kid.” I did fine in school, and I never got in trouble. But I had all of the household responsibilities. I was never able to keep up. And when my mother came home from work, I didn’t know if she was going to go to her room, slam the door and go to sleep, or if she was going to rage against me for something I was supposed to do.
By the time I was a tweener (we didn’t have that word to describe us back then), I had started running away from home. I remember being 12-years old and running out the door late at night because I wanted my mom to stop screaming at me, pulling my hair, or dragging me across the room.
I’d run for a mile to the nearest park. Sometimes I didn’t have on any shoes. I would sit under a tree and cry. I’d wish she was dead.
I knew she was never my mother. Who would ever wish their mother dead?
When I became a legal adult, I got out of that house as fast as I could. I went to college and put myself through nursing school.
I then became a mother to everyone: my kids, my spouse, friends, even my work as a nurse was about caring for the sick and dying.
In my adulthood, I envisioned a mom I could come to for advice, who could guide me to do what I needed to be happy and at peace.
I’d made so many mistakes as a young woman and seemed to keep making them. I needed a mom. Not this pseudo-mom who didn’t love me. I needed a real mom who cared enough to show me I was better than how the abusive men in my life treated me. She’d show me I didn’t need to apologize for existing.
But that mom never showed up for me. I had to raise myself again after two divorces from abusive men. I had taught myself all the things I should have learned in childhood. I hired a few therapists through those years, and they helped guide me.
My therapists showed me I could be my own parent. My last therapist reinforced in me the idea that I could nurture that little girl inside me. I could be a parent to myself and give that young child the nurturing and love she needed.
And I did it. I treated myself with kindness. I surrounded myself with people who loved and supported me. I had to filter through many people to get there, and it was a long road to finding my village. But damn, it was worth the effort.
As I stood in front of the apartment door, I saw a short older woman look out the window, with fiery red hair and a big smile. She opened the door and invited me in. I handed her the plant, and she gave me an even bigger smile.
“Oh, thank you!” she said as she closed the door behind her. Then she stood in front of me and looked at me.
“You look so familiar,” she said to me. “Like we’ve met before.” She paused. “Maybe in a different life,” she concluded.
I was immediately endeared with her. She headed to the kitchen and gave me sparkling water from the fridge.
We talked some more, and again our conversation came around to us having met before. With my claircognizance, the message came into my head, ‘Mother. She’s your mother.’ With that message came a deep knowing I get when I receive a claircognizant intuitive hit.
I told her this. “I think you were my mother.” As I said that to her, it settled in me as a clear truth.
She stopped and looked up at the ceiling as if listening to the heavens. Then she said to me, “You’re right. I was just told that you’re correct, I’m your mother. Isn’t that something!”
I know this may sound crazy, and maybe it is. I couldn’t explain the feeling inside my heart when she said this. I felt like I’d found long lost family. Both of us felt a soul connection and had what seemed like a very strange yet well-received family reunion.
We sat and talked for hours. In that amount of time, I’d received more validation, more love, and support in that short afternoon with my soul mother than I’d ever received in an entire lifetime from my biological mother.
This lovely woman is not of my blood, but she is connected with me at a higher level than blood. She’s connected with me in spirit.
When I got home, I thanked my husband for finding her. “I didn’t find her,” he said to me. “You found her. You were the one who sent the message on the app. I’m only the messenger.”
I’ve been talking with my soul mother regularly ever since. I’m having lunch with her next week. She’s asked me if I’d like to do healing work with her, and we are talking about doing healing work together with hospice patients.
And as when meeting someone who you become instant friends, she and I have become instant mother/daughter.
I found my real mother — my soul mother.
Michelle Jaqua is a women's advocate and a writer on Medium.com. Her publication, The Virago, has 100+ women writers who share their stories.