This is a topic that I have thought about writing for many years — and the timing couldn’t be better. With the Outlander Season 7 finale bomb drop and ghosts of the past echoing in my head, I’ve found myself reflecting more than ever on the emotional depth of this story, and more specifically, on the woman at the center of it - Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser.

Outlander is not just a show or a book series to me, it’s sort of an emotional home, a secret place I return to time and time again. If I had to choose one story to carry with me to a deserted island, it would be this one. Diana Gabaldon didn’t just create a historical romance, she wrote a multi-generational saga that reaches through time, across oceans, through wars, through love, betrayal, grief and birth, healing and death. And at the heart of this epic historical fantasy is Claire, a woman I met when I was barely twenty years old. A woman who would unknowingly walk beside me through some of the most formative seasons of my life.

The First Time I Met Claire

Seventeen years ago, I was given a recommendation by a coworker — a wise older woman with Scottish roots. She told me about this epic book series that had everything: history, romance, mystery, and yes — time travel. I was skeptical, at first. Scottish historical fiction wasn’t exactly my usual genre, but time travel and a love story sure was. But I trusted her, and thankfully, I followed her advice.

I vividly remember hunting down the book in the bookstore, feeling the weight of it in my hands, then losing myself for hours, days, weeks in Claire’s world. By the end of the first book, not only was my inner monologue fully entrenched in a Scottish brogue (Gaelic and all — ye ken?), but something deeper had begun to stir in me.

Claire Fraser wasn’t just a character. She was a guide. A mirror. A friend. And eventually, she became a maternal figure of sorts — one I would turn to, time and time again.

The Motherhood in the Fantasy

 In Claire’s journey, I found some of the rawest depictions of motherhood I have ever seen in fiction. Her love for her daughter, Brianna, her relationship with Fergus, the children she lost, the ones she protected, the women she cared for — all of it wove together a portrayal of motherhood that wasn’t idealized or sanitized. It was fierce and aching, wise and wounded, grounded in sacrifice and yet still full of fire.

When I first read Outlander, I wasn’t a mother. But when I became one, I found myself returning to Claire with new eyes. Not only could I relate to Claire in new ways than before, but now I could experience the story in new ways then before with the Starz adaption.  The way Claire carries the weight of her knowledge — of the future, of medicine, of war, of loss — was mesmerizing to me, and it still is to this day. She was a mother who bore the burden of knowing too much and yet still had to let her children walk into uncertain futures.

Motherhood, as I have come to understand, isn’t just about loving and raising a child. It’s about learning to let go while still holding everything sacred. It’s about protecting and releasing, guiding and learning, grieving and celebrating — often all at once. Claire’s journey through motherhood, from a young women struggling to conceive, to caring for her grown childen and grandchildren, remarkably reflects the contradictions and complexities us mothers live through every day, regardless on the time or country we find ourselves in.

A Life of Love - Not Just the Romance

Of course, we can’t talk about Claire without talking about Jamie! Their love story is epic — no other word will do. But what always struck me most about their relationship wasn’t the sweeping romantic moments or the intense passion (but yes, those help). It was the way they grew together, even when apart. The way they allowed one another to be fully seen. To be broken. To be reborn. To be who they are meant to be. Their love endures because they never give up on eachother.

There’s a scene where Jamie tends to Claire’s wounds, and he simply says, “You are my home.” It’s a phrase that I have come to understand deeply in my own marriage during times of change and fear. In motherhood, especially, there are moments when you lose yourself — in diapers, in school schedules, in the sheer weight of responsibility. And yet, through Claire and Jamie’s love, I learned something invaluable: we can still be a home for ourselves, and for each other. 

Healing and Identity

One of Claire’s greatest roles, of course, is as a healer. And there is something so profoundly maternal in that, too — the tending of wounds, the constant vigilance for sickness, the daily dance with death and life. But more than that, Claire’s identity as a healer is never just about others. It’s about her own sense of purpose. 

There were seasons of my life when I felt I had lost that purpose, motherhood had pulled me from my own path as a healer — a mental health worker, care taker, case manager and advocate. Swallowed by the economic reality of rising childcare and household costs, my passions were put on hold, and slowly it took its toll. Claire’s constant return to her calling reminded me that motherhood doesn’t erase who we are. It simply expands it. We carry more. We see more. We feel more. And in doing so, we become more. I have found my calling again, and just as I am different from who I was when I lost it, the paths before me are also not what they used to be either. 

That, I think, is the magic of Claire Fraser. As you grow, she grows with you, and she is able to reach mothers across generations and cultures, through reading the books or on television. Every time I return to Outlander, which I'll be honest is usually before the start of each season since it has premiered, I see something new that resonates. I’ve connected with her as a young woman unsure of her future, and I’ve seen myself in her as a new mother, raw and lost in the haze of it all. I cried with her when she had to let go of her daughter, and I continue to find hope in her resilience, courage in her defiance, and peace in her healing.

Claire’s story is not just about time travel. It’s about time itself — how it shapes us, how it tests us, how it heals us. And how, if we’re lucky, we get to live not just once, but many times, through all the versions of ourselves that motherhood — and life — brings forth.

Final Thoughts

Claire Fraser is not just a fictional character. She is a companion. A witness. A voice. Through her, I’ve come to understand the complexities of motherhood more deeply, and I’ve learned that being a woman is to be constantly becoming — strong yet soft, wise yet learning, and wounded yet still healing.

It’s been 17 years since I first held Outlander in my hands. In that time, I’ve become a different woman — and yet I am still the same as I always was. Just like Claire.

And for that, I’ll forever be grateful to her — and to Diana Gabaldon, who gave us all the gift of living many lives through one very extraordinary woman.

~ The Fantasy Mom