Going parental: For the love of a child has no measure

Going parental: For the love of a child has no measure

Posted on December 3rd, 2009 by Jaclyn Roth

I apologize for my absence these past couple of weeks. I vow here and now to be present and accounted for every Thursday, from this day forth. No more random, unexplained disappearances. I’ve experienced too many of those this week, and so in my own small way I’ve decided to show up. Every Thursday, as previously promised, I will be here. I will show up.

I want so badly to be able to bitch and moan about some mindless act of parenting that makes me mental and irate in order to garner laughter and prove my innate ability to turn everything into a joke. But I am struggling in a way that is unfamiliar to me.

In less than two hours this week I was informed of the passing of two lives. I did not have the pleasure of knowing either one of them. One was a girl I went to high school with — a name and face I recognize but a girl I did not personally know.

The other is practically unspeakable. A child. An infant never granted the gift of a single breath outside her mother’s womb. A baby born still. A friend, a mother — left to mourn a child she was never able to know. A kick in the stomach — that beautiful reminder of the life inside you… that will forever be her connection to her daughter. A baby born, given a name, held, cherished and blessed by those who loved her. A soul born without a body. But a soul nevertheless.

This week has tested me in ways I thought I had clearly passed with flying colors in the past. I thought I had learned how to handle such things. To have passed the past. Simply not possible.

Life is full of beautiful surprises and heart wrenching tragedy. But we always walk away having learned something. Instead of slapping the annoying woman in the face at a birthday party I attended this week, I smiled and let her rant about her bratty, screaming kids that don’t nap. I drifted instead, thinking about how lucky we both were to even have kids. To have healthy children running around us giving us cause for such mindless conversation.

I had more patience with my daughter this week. I hugged her more. I laid with her in bed and held her until I fell asleep and she ultimately woke up and kicked me out because, “Mommy — ma bed’s too small, you have to go to your bed. Mommies sleep in their beds and kids sleep in their own beds.” Wow. She really does listen when I speak. It was a well-needed laugh. I hugged her as tightly as I could and as I left the room I allowed my gaze to linger as she breathed deeply in and out, already asleep once again. I could have stood there all night.

The fragility of life is not a weakness, but a fineness. And I have learned that the trick in life is not to be strong, but to feel strong.

All the love in my heart goes out to you today.

Going Parental appears every Thursday.