When I brought him home I knew nothing and the world was still reeling from the falling of the towers. I felt this horrible guilt for introducing him to an earth obsessed with a war I feared would come into our own backyard but he shook his tiny fists at my fear and reduced my war to only his needs.
He was this chubby ball who did nothing but cry and I was a baby holding a baby and I felt immeasurable pride and immeasurable terror. All it amounted to was an abundance of love but it was enough to help me grow up right there alongside him.
And I've watched this boy grow and turn and laugh and scowl and I remember how he was knit together in me and how I held my belly there below my heart with a kind of wishful glimpse into the future but never once though about watching this tiny whoosh-whoosh of a heartbeat someday becoming a man.
But now I do see and it's terrifying and spectacular - the lower voice and the matching height and the pimples and the whisper of a mustache and the closed bedroom door and the way his laughter {real, wrenched from the gut laughter} can take over a room and light the world on fire with a flicker of the joy he so often keeps to himself these days.
I'm not sure how to be the mother to a teenager.
But I also didn't know how to be the mother to a baby.
That's the thing about motherhood, I suppose. It shapes us just as much as we are shaping the life entrusted to us. Day by day. Sometimes moment by moment. And it's a beautiful gift that has been mine for the last thirteen years and will continue to be mine as long as I have the privilege to walk this earth and hear that one sweet word that makes me more proud than anything: Mom.
Ah teenagers. I know nothing of boys. Girls on the other hand...tighten your seatbelt, check your airbag, check and recheck your parachute, double check your bungee harness, tighten the cinch on your saddle, grab hold of the reins with an extra firm grip, and hold on for the ride. You will rely on the Lord like never before because you will constantly be whispering in His ear!
ReplyDeleteThis makes me so glad I'm starting with boys! I've got a good seven years before I start panicking over my little lady...at least I hope I have that long. Praying for a late bloomer ;)
DeleteMS is a teenager. He turns 18 in 68 days (he has a count down). He's both very grown up and very young all at the same time. I want to slow things down, but I also want to watch him as he becomes the great man I know that he is going to be. It's hard, and it's crazy, and I am just so proud of him.
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