A Perfectly Ordinary Day

Happy Mother's Day

Except, that is, when we have a baby. Then we know – if only for a moment, for one long, sweet moment – what it is to be more than one, to be one plus, to have split open and spilled out our blood and our viscera and our spirit and gathered it all back up again in our arms and held it, tight, pressed it to our chests, felt it throbbing and squirming and to have known, to know, what it is to hold one’s soul in one’s arms.

And then to have it pulled away. Because this is what is inevitable, this is what the books can’t tell you, this what no mother can escape: from the moment your child, your soul, is handed to you, whether that child has been pulled from your gut or yanked out from between your legs or flown from across the sea, whether your soul comes to you in gore or wrapped in white cotton sheets, your possession of it – of him, of her – is temporary. Mind-spinningly temporary. Every second, every heartbeat, that passes from the moment you clutch your second soul, your little soul, in your arms, takes that soul away from you. Every moment is a moment of growth, and every moment of growth loosens your grip. And you must keep holding, you must keep your arms outstretched, but you can’t, you mustn’t, fight to hold on.

taken from herbadmother.com