You’ll never know what happens in the hours after I’ve fussed at you, after you’ve cried and I’ve come and explained myself and we’ve come to terms.
You’ll never know that after we’ve kissed and hugged and said our ‘I love you’s’ and I’ve reassured you, yet again, that while I will always love you, there will be times that I will not like you.
You’ll never know a lot of the things that happen after you’ve fallen asleep.
When I hear the deep, heavy, rhythmic breathing and the small popping sound your breath makes as it escapes your lips, signaling that you’ve tumbled into the deepest childhood slumber; it’s then that I slide next to you on your bed. It is there in those quiet precious stolen moments that I stroke your hair, and ever-so-lightly trace the constantly changing contours of your face, I marvel over the softness that was, that is, that will all too soon cease to be.
It is then that I apologize again.
It is then that I whisper my apologies for failing you in whatever way that I’ve failed you. In that moment, the reality of the enormity of this things called motherhood swoops down on me, and I shudder.
It is then that I pray, in the dark, cool, quiet depths of your room, the sanctuary of childhood and innocence – it is then and there, as I gaze upon you hovering in the in-between, that I pray my hardest, deepest most sacred prayer:
“Dear Lord,
Let me be enough”
because it makes their hair look like straw.
