I have a lot of irrational fears … flying, elevators, snakes, heights, tire blowouts on the interstate, building or bridge collapses, earthquakes, birds … seriously, I could go on for days of all the ridiculous things I am afraid of. As a new mom, there are a million new fears that I won’t even go in to. But, one new fear has quickly overcome all my other silly fears.
When I was 10 my father passed away after a short battle with brain cancer. His death shattered my entire world. For years, and even now, I often find myself asking the same questions over and over – would he be proud of me, what was he like at this age, would he have been a good grandfather, would he have been there all those times a girl needs her father – all of which are forever unanswered.
Thanks to social media, I get to read all these stories of fathers who left their daughters letters or videos to read and watch as they grew up without them. These fathers held early weddings so they could symbolically walk their daughters down the aisle. They arranged for people or things to stand in their place for moments when they could not be there. While I love all of these stories, sometimes they only help to widen the hole in my heart. Why didn’t my dad have the foresight to do all these things. Didn’t he know I’d one day walk down the aisle, desperate for a father-daughter moment? Did he not want to impart fatherly wisdom on me as I graduated college or learned to drive a car? Did he care that he was going to miss all those moments? Did it occur to him how much I would miss him in those moments?
Now that I am a mother, my greatest fear is that one day my son will have to ask these questions. Every time I leave the house I wonder what will happen if I don’t make it home. Will he know how much I love him and how desperately I want to be there for every moment in his life – big or small. Who will comfort him when he needs his mother? There are a million other questions that break my heart to even think about him having to ask. I pray I never have to worry about these questions. While I know it is pointless to worry about things out of my control, I cannot help but remember my own childhood or think about my husband’s – he lost his father when he was young too and his mother a few years ago. I never want my son to know that heartbreak.
The one, and likely only, benefit of this fear is that it caused me to hold him a little longer at night while he sleeps on my chest. I savor the sound of his laughter and the cadence of his babbling. While his little brain isn’t making memories just yet, I take a million photos so one day he might be able to piece together his childhood and fill in the gaps that his memory can’t. I make sure to never leave the house without telling him and his father that I love them. While these things do not calm my fears, they do help to reassure me that should my fears become reality perhaps my son won’t spend his life wondering about his mother the way I wonder about my father. He will, without a doubt, know that I loved him fiercely and would be proud of him no matter the day, event or outcome.