I have always heard that you never know the true power of love until you know the love of a parent for a child. I never understood that the love they were referring to was a completely different kind of love – one that is all consuming, unapologetic, inexplicable, completely irrational and wholly fulfilling. In the past, I’ve felt a variation of this love for the children of my friends and family members – although, my love for my niece is likely the closest I’d ever been to feeling that way prior to the moment my newborn son was placed on my chest.
Sometimes, I look down at his tiny face, admiring the dimples he inherited from his father (dimples I’d spent countless nights praying he would have) and I am in complete awe that this tiny human being was brought into existence by us. WE made this teeny person – I protected him in my womb and then brought him into the world. The miracle of life is baffling. It is hard to believe that less than a year ago all we had of this tiny person were hopes and dreams – he was in our hearts and we desperately dreamed of him, but he wasn’t a living, breathing baby.
Even now that he is here I can’t explain the way my heart skips a beat when his tiny eyes seem to peer into mine or when his lips curl into a half smile that I will swear is not gas. Even his two am screaming is music to my ears (it may lead to a splitting headache, but it is still music). Or how I can’t help but smile when he gets the hiccups or laughs in his sleep. I find myself wondering what his little mind is dreaming of to make him smile and laugh in his impossible to wake state.
During our early morning or late night feedings, I find myself studying his face. I often tell him that he is going to change the world, but then reassure him that the only world that matters is the one he creates for himself. I tell him that I will love him no matter who he grows up to be and that each and every choice he makes he can make with the confidence that his mother will be right by his side. Sure, he’ll make mistakes and sometimes he’ll land flat on his face, but no matter how hard he falls or how dumb the decision, I hope he remembers somewhere in his subconscious the words his mother whispered into his ears. And I hope he knows the depth of my all consuming, unapologetic, inexplicable, completely irrational and wholly fulfilling love for him.