My Heart/Mother's Day


All the clichés start making sense once you become a parent. It is like having your heart outside your body. The fear of something happening to your child is so deep and so real, I cannot find words for it. My biggest fear, since before she was born, is loosing my daughter. I worry that I will get a phone call while I'm at work saying she's in the hospital or worse.

A few years ago I wrote a short story about a mom who's daughter dies in an accident. Though it was fiction and it was not real, I felt that story. Imagining loosing a child was painful. Just imagining it was painful. So when I hear about a parent loosing their child it gets to me in a way that nothing else gets to me. A parent shouldn't have to bury their child. A child should not have to die. It makes no sense, it's not fair!

So being a parent is worrying all the time. Worrying about all the billion things that could go wrong and struggling to stay in control. Knowing that you can't control everything.

When I was pregnant I worried about miscarriage. When she was born I checked that she was breathing while she slept. When she started daycare I worried she'd get hurt or lost or worse. When she started school I worried about her getting hurt or lost or worse.

As she grows the worries grow. I wonder if they'll ever stop. Will I still worry when she's an adult and wants to go backpacking in South America? Will I still worry when she says she has fallen in love? Will I still worry when she comes and tells me I will be a grandmother?
I think I will. I think I'll worry about her 'til the day I die. Because even though it's a cliché, she is my heart.

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