Every year on each of my children's birthdays I look through the baby book or scrapbook. Or pile of pictures that are going to become a scrapbook. Or pictures that someday I am going to actually print so I can pile them up and someday scrapbook them. And I am struck by how tiny they are. How much they have grown.
However, this year I was struck by a different thought while looking at pictures of my now ten year-old. I looked from his face, probably for the first time, to the face of the one holding him. The ten year-ago version of me. I noticed how young I looked. I turned back more pages. Yep. Even younger. More pages, same story. The whole way back to the first picture of a new, glowing, excited, exhausted mommy. And this time, instead of writing my sweet baby a letter for their birthday, I wished to reach out to her.
If I could, I would go back and tell her so much. I would tell her to relax. To enjoy. Oh, I know she knows that. I know that she made the most of everyday. She played. Laughed. Grasped each moment as best and as tightly as she could. But there was always more. Fear. Disappointment in herself. A struggle to know she was making the right choices. And there are so many, many choices. Everyday. Every child. Every minute. Sometimes she will feel like she is drowning in a sea of uncertainty.
Mostly, though, I would tell her that she is going to survive, because I know that she will not always feel like it or believe it.
There will be bumps and bruises. I know that she is going to drop her brand new baby at just a few days old from the couch in her exhaustion. She judges herself because she doesn't know how many mothers do that.
She will have to hold down a baby for testing. And a toddler. And a preschooler. And she will cry longer than they will. And she will remember it forever, even when they forget.
There will come a day that she is tired of being pregnant. And there will come a day that she wishes that she still was. And feeling either feeling is fine. And normal. And so are the tears. And one day, they will stop falling as hard. But they will still fall.
She is going to pace for hours overnight. She is going to pray in quite a few hospital rooms. She is going to meet more doctors than she can remember. She is going to stand in a hospital hallway while her heart is rolled away for surgery. More than once. And it will bring her to her knees. Literally. But she will breathe again.
She is going to hold more than one grubby hand while there are x-rays, stitches, staples, concussions, broken bones and close calls. And while it makes her queasy, she will not be sick.
There will be psychologists. Neurologists. Diagnoses. Autism. ADHD. But she will always know that she has the best children in the world.
Her husband will work away. At times far away. But he will be her rock. And she will need him so very much. And he will be there. And she may need to tell him why they fall, but he will dry her tears.
She will try to hold herself together through depression. And she will struggle to use her hand after a stroke. And she will get very angry when she misspeaks or stutters. But she will talk again. And she will use that hand again.
She will homeschool. And it will be fun. And exciting. And scary. And hard. And she will want to quit, but she won't. And it will be rewarding again. And even fun again. She is making the correct choice, but she won't always feel like it.
In that moment, in that snap shot of her young life, she is full of innocence. She does not know what the future holds. She does not know what is in store. And that is a good thing. Because it is overwhelming. At times it is unbearable. But it will make her strong. Stronger than she has ever been. Sometimes she won't even know it, but it is happening, everyday. Even this one.
