TO BE YOUR MOM

TO BE YOUR MOM

I was a child when I first came to know you. You are the most incredible person I have ever met. You were tinier. I was tiny. In my knowledge and understanding. You were inquisitive. I wondered what else might break that I touched and how in the world God thought I was able to be an icon in your world. You were needy. I so needed to be needed and so afraid that you actually might. Need…me. And then…what if…I failed you? You smiled and the world shined. I cried and left dew where angels wouldn’t go. I felt so inadequate. That God would entrust you to me. What did I know about being a…Mom? It went so far beyond dirty diapers and snotty noses and sleepless nights. It became—and I HAD NO IDEA when it began—this love affair—the most important relationship I would EVER be a part of and work on and pray for. You exhausted me; you bent me; you thrilled me; you grew me; you defined me.

The first night I brought you home I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. I was still unraveled by the whole experience of you. Little did I know then. I was lost in my head at how you traveled through my body over time, feeding from my supply and growing in inertia and now found in my arms. The first time you cried, like really cried, I cried too. I wasn’t enough for you is what your cry said, and I cried because you were everything to me that I would ever need. The way your crocodile tears glistened on your long eyelashes and dribbled across your chubby, rosy, chapped cheeks; I still remember how I reached up to brush my own away so I could really see you and make sure you weren’t broken. When you said your first word, I recorded it in my memory box, and I swear I can still hear you chant it today, ‘Ma-ma-ma-ma’. I wish you would still say it just that way. And then the day happened when it snuck out, just like that, just like it was something you had been saying all along: ‘I ove ou, Mommy.’ The world stood forever still in one moment for me. This is what God birthed me for, for just this moment.

There was the time when you ate your first spoonful of bland pureed, slimy sweet potatoes and spat them out all over me, dripping off my eyelash and spattered on my blouse. I never told you then, but I would have spit them out too, and maybe I did on my own Ma-ma-ma-ma, and I just don’t know about it. Like you wouldn’t know now unless I tell you. That’s why I’m writing you this. So you will know. And the time you were given your first Popsicle to help your swollen gums. I wonder if it really works because the ice cold numbs those bumps, or could it be the sugary sweetness of a forbidden (up-to-then) treat? Like the first taste of ice cream or the way a soda pop feels and sounds in your little mouth or the snap of the bubble gum you chomped for the first time.

The first time you fell so hard it scarred your head and made you bleed, I bled also, inside, and a piece of my heart forever will be scarred too. I panicked, with you in my arms after scooping you off the sidewalk, running down the road as if I could carry you at that gait all the way to the clinic. Somehow with you I forgot to breathe and think and plan. You took away my reasoning ability. As if. As if became my word for you. As if I’d ever hurt you. As if I’d ever—ever—not understand. As if you could ever do anything to make me stop loving you. As if I could save you. As if I could be everything always you would need. As if. As if the day would come when a band-aid wouldn’t fix your scrapes with life. As if I could be the answer to every little question you have before you even ask. As if there will ever come a time when a lollipop or a glass of milk and cookies or a bowl of popcorn or a fancy latte or a good old-fashioned cry sprawled across my lap while I tickle your back and play with your hair will not be sufficient anymore to heal your hurts. As if Jesus would exempt me from the vast numbers of parents who have lost their babies to snares along this journey called life. As if a distance could ever grow larger between you and me than the spaces between the footfall to your door from my door. As if…

I sigh. I sigh a lot lately. I find Jesus in my sigh because I know He hears it as my request for His entry to my here and now. I know He hears my heart because at once your precious text dings on my phone, and from nowhere my phone lights up with a missed call. It then sports a message from those little look-a-likes you are bringing to life. Suddenly small packages arrive out of the blue, and your voice crackles on the other end of the line, breaking, as you say thanks for some silly ‘given’. Given, that I will always be your most loyal fan and the warrior of any battle you request me to suit up for. Given, that I will walk, run, jump, fly, or, ha! simply just drive to wherever you are, whenever you say the word ‘Ma-ma-ma-ma’. Given, that I will breathe for you when you cannot and I will cry for you when your tears won’t come anymore, and given, that I will believe in you even when you have given up on having any beliefs in yourself. Given, I still can’t keep my eyes off you, or your babies now who are identical to you, and whom I love…almost as much as I love you. Almost. Given, that when I found you, I lost myself to ever feeling whole again without you.

You are the greatest lesson I have ever learned. You are the highest mountain I will ever climb. You are the deepest hurt and the most outstanding joy. I have laughed more and cried more due to the experience of you. You make me giddy with hope and you have broken my heart. I cry for your past and how I failed you and I cry for your future and how God will prove Himself faithful to you in spite of me. And now I watch all that you are becoming and have become and the hope that you are raising in your own garden of life. You did this. You and Jesus. Not me. Not Mom. And I thank Him every moment of every day for you and your future and the lives you will touch. That you would learn just like me. That you wouldn’t know everything, and you would grow into who trusts you and needs you. And at the end of the day, you would be able to say—like me—when I think back over all the years…I was a child when I first came to know you… and you are the most incredible person I have ever met. To be your mom will forever be my highest calling.