Mother
readtime ~3min
How long has it been since you were her. You can handle the truth when it doesn’t sting.
Here she is. Exactly half of you. Bright eyes, tiny feet, never still, dressed in a violet sundress and silly shoes. This is your new heartbeat. Have you ever loved anything this small or this much?
Tomorrow is a big day. The first in a succession of many. She will leave you like a bird departing from the nest. Taking flight for the first time, and joining the ranks of other chickadees blindly entering the world. Here is the list of necessities. Pencils and crayons and scissors and glue. Double check them twice to ensure nothing is missing.
Look at the way she is. Pause to admire her growth. She models a backpack in the mirror, twists to examine it from all angles. Here she is laughing. Always laughing. This is her: The most personal extension of you. On the day she was born, you took her home and refused to remove her from your side. She slept beside you as you stroked her hair and placed delicate kisses on her skin. And for the first time you felt a certain bitterness in how time seems to pass faster the tighter you try and hold onto it.
Be proud. Your beautiful baby has matured into a beautiful child. She is consumed by joy and all things good.
You are her protector. Nothing exists that you wouldn’t do for her. Her words are ceaseless in production, yet you care about all she has to say. This isn’t duty; it’s devotion. You have volunteered to prepare her for the world and to try and make sense of it. You will teach her to be good, but you will not teach her how to think. Allow her to make mistakes on her own, and she will be stronger because of it.
Tomorrow she will no longer be yours alone. She will be a light whose brightness you will share with the world. Time will make her sprout taller. She will lose teeth and replace them with others. She will outgrow these new clothes, beliefs, and the friends she has yet to make. It will not be entirely pleasant. Nothing ever is. She will develop an attitude, and opinions that stray from your own. Time will make her older, and not always wiser. There will be boys. Or girls. All kinds of each. These too will pass until there is only one, and it is time to begin a family of her own. But that time is not now.
Right now she is yours. How long has it been since you were her. You can handle the truth when it doesn’t sting. You have a past of your own. A past filled with people you chose to love on purpose. And now, what seems clear to you is that it is possible to love someone so permanently that it can never be undone.