I watch you sleeping. I don’t think you know this, but I do. I can’t help myself. I see you there, so still, so perfect, and I can’t look away. I am drawn to the way your eyelashes curl upward to the sky. Their beckoning gesture draws me closer. I stand at your bedside and I am transfixed.
What did I do to deserve this?
I’m reminded that you are mine, and I am yours. I know this frontwards and backwards in my mind, but often times when I look at you it’s like the first time to my heart. It’s like I am just at that moment aware of the gravity of it all. You are my little girl. In that moment my heart leaps with joy at the celebration of the type of love I never realized could exist. Certainly not to the extent I feel when I watch the calm rise and fall of your chest while you dream.
I feel it again as I marvel at the perfection I glimpse in your features. Tiny, upturned nose. Lips that pucker without even trying. Smooth skin that would make a china doll envious. I feel so unworthy of you.
What did I do to deserve this?
You came so effortlessly. I wanted a child and conceived so easily. The wait for you was not without discomfort, but it was uneventful. You entered this world outside my womb just as easily. You actually surprised me at how uncomplicated your arrival was to our little family. I still remember your first cry. It tore open a hole in my heart allowing the entry of emotions I had never before known.
Had I known love before you cultivated it in me? I thought I had, but what you brought with your tiny, shrieking cry and fat, wrinkled face was beyond any feeling I had experienced thus far.
I thought it might lessen with time, that crazy, happy ache I got every time I held you to my chest and breathed in your scent. I thought it would fade to something more manageable as I became accustomed to my new role. I didn’t think I could maintain feeling such big love in such a small heart. I wondered if the new would wear off before I exploded from loving you so much.
As I stood over you, counting your breaths unintentionally, mesmerized by the stray sprig of hair tickling your forehead; I realized it had indeed changed. That strange emotion that crushed me under its weight yet simultaneously made me feel like I was walking on air, it had changed. It had evolved. It had matured, and it had grown.
What did I do to deserve this?
Still the same question silently screamed inside my head. What had I done in my pitiful life to deserve the gift I received in you? How could I compare to the immensity of joy your little life brought? What had I ever done in my thirty plus years to deserve the title of Mom?
I gave you everything I had, every part of me I gave to you. Yet it couldn’t hold a candle to what you gave to me, just by lying there sleeping.
I kissed your pale cheek and lingered there until you stirred. I watched as you turned on your side, exhaling a contented sigh, but never waking. Perhaps, I thought, sometimes we receive the best gifts even when we don’t deserve them. We receive the best gifts simply because we are loved.
I knew as I allowed my hand to linger on your back that God gave me you so I could finally begin to fathom His love for me. He had saved my life with His own Son even when I was undeserving. Then He had given me you so I would never forget it.
J. Heenan says
You hit the nail on the head
Well stated
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you very much.
ruthiespage says
So precious
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you 🙂