On Mothers

These are my smiling little children - The boy on the left is 12 months and the girl on the right is five years. Time has passed so quickly. It is funny I can look at them both and see them just as they were in the hospital - cradled in my arms for the first time. Their eyes squinting and unadjusted to the light all around them - unaware and scared of the world they had entered into. So tiny and red. Wrinkled and scented with what seemed the essence of purity itself.

I can recall flashes of memories, mainly feelings that awaken in brief instances. A mishmash of events carried out in a haphazard fashion, standard things every mother and father goes through.

In the begining the feelings of creating such a beautiful new life overtake - the tiredness, the aching, stress. All the agony and pain of labor seems to have washed away during this brief period.

Yet as the weeks progress, like in some cruel joke, nature inflicts upon us what seems like some maddash through parental basic training - unfortunately it is not a Drill Sargent you encounter, no, it is a screaming inconsolable infant.Which in some ways is worse. And slowly you feel the sleepless hours start to take there toll.

Your body is not in the physical shape you need it to be - you are ill equipped to be inching your way through mountains of laundry and dishes. You aren't ready to shimmy up the stairs, now starting to feel like a rope climb. Nor do you want to do laps around the house for forgotten infant equipment, that you think will somehow (hopefully) appease this baby. Nights turn into days as this baby turns your schedule topsy turvy. He has needs, and yours are trivial at best.....
And he has made his presence known.

But just like everything else, days turn into weeks and then into months, and that little screaming bundle of chaos grows into a babbling, toddling little person. One who can add the sweetest moments to your daily ritual. The days and nights slowly regain there proper momentum, and bedtimes are now a real thing to look forward to. Even though the demanding has changed from screaming into a more direct form, it somehow makes it more palatable.


I feel something that must be what only a mother's love can feel like --- the light in my children's eyes now blankets my heart, like I once swaddled and blanketed them. And when life's struggles and stresses creep in, and disrupt my mood - I can look at their faces and feel an instant wave of warmth, of joy rush over me and I can soldier on another day.