On becoming a mother

So I've been spending a lot of time awake at night, which is a bit unusual for me.

And I'll admit that a lot of that time is spent trying to refocus from the things that worry me, to regroup in the deep abiding trust that makes it easy to sleep deeply and soundly.

But last night, as I lay there and thought, I thought about the fact that today marks the day that, twenty six years ago, I became a mother.  We, as a couple, became parents.

While there are lots of moments that define a couple and a person, becoming a mother singularly meant more to me than any other of my life.

No long exclamations about the daughter who brought this to my life... simply to say that having her in my life was then and what still today makes the sun shine on each new day for me.  To hear her voice, to put my arms around her reminds me that my life is blessed beyond compare.

What I remember about that day were a couple of things...

The morning of her birth I picked green beans.  Truly, hugely pregnant, I did the squat and pick, heave my heavy belly up and squat and pick and repeat so forth on down the long rows of beans.  That morning, like today, was blistering hot.   So, the very last thing that we did together, as a pair, before her birth, was garden.

And then, I remember her eyes... at birth, even while still attached to her umbilical cord, she was perfectly silent, but her eyes were so huge and so expressive.  At the moment of birth, she looked so very deeply at her father and then at me, as if to say "I'm here to change your life"...

and so she did.