The Story of Demeter and Persephone Taught Me the True Work of Motherhood

The Ancient Greek Myth Is a Reminder of the Necessary Pain of Letting a Child Go

When I was young, my mother used to tell me the ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone at bedtime. Now that I am a mother myself, the story has come to haunt me in more ways than one—informing my own experience of motherhood as the continuous interplay between separation and reunification, breaking apart to come together again, and all the grief and joy in between.

As a popular retelling of the myth goes, Persephone is picking flowers with her friends near a lake when suddenly the earth splits open …