There are just some things in this life that you cannot understand unless you experience them yourself. I have accepted this, but you see, I have this thing I like to do. I like to try to feel others pain. No, I'm not a masochist. for as long as I can remember, I've had a desperate need to understand, to feel, to learn. It frustrates me when I cannot feel or understand a situation or idea. I know I can never understand most emotions completely, but I try my best to understand, or feel even at least an ounce of anothers pain. Only understanding can bring progress.
However, as I've grown older, I've realized there is one feeling that is stronger than any other emotion I've ever seen in action, or have ever tried to understand. A feeling that is stronger than the love for money, or for a friend, or for even a lover. No, it's so much deeper, so much heavier and unbreakable. It's the the love a parent has for their child.
This is a love I cannot fully understand till I am actually a parent, I'm sure. But, when I try to touch even the most outer layer of that love and understanding, I am blown away. The deep, aching, vulnerable, and life changing love a parent, especially that a mother has for their child, is completely unexplainable.
When my mother tells me the story about how one of her sons, Joshua, had died soon after birth, it hits a very tender feminine spot in my heart. How you can leave your home, scared, nervous, but also so filled with love, and excited to hold that child in your arms, only to come home heart broken, empty handed, and your arms aching to hold the child that you never even got to see. My mother has retold stories from the numerous times she's almost lost my brothers to Cystic Fibrosis. When they have stopped breathing, when they need to be in the hospital for weeks, when she watches them cry as they are being wheeled away for surgery or when they need to have blood taken for the nth time. It kills me to listen, to even try to touch and understand even a speck of that love and broken heartedness, never mind actually experience it myself. In all honestly, its making me cry right now. I know women who have gone through not only one miscarriage, but many many more. The hurt, the discouragement, the unfathomable pain... I can barely grasp it.
I have siblings, so I know - that in those relationships, it's all about fairness: you want your siblings to have exactly what you have. The same amount of toys, the same number of fruit snacks you do, the same share of love. But being a mother, from what I see, is completely different. You want your child to have more than you did. You want to build a fire underneath him and watch him soar. It's bigger than words.
When you first become a parent, as far as I can imagine, you can lie in bed at night and imagine the most horrible happenings: the attack of a cat your child tries to pet, the taste of a poison berry, the smile of a dangerous stranger, the dive into a shallow pool. There are so many ways a child can be harmed that is seems nearly impossible one person alone could succeed at keeping him safe. As children get older, the hazards only change: Inhaling toxic fumes, playing with matches, small pink pills sold behind the bleachers of the middle school. You can stay up all night and still not count all the ways to lose the people you love.
Mothers, correct me if I am wrong, but from what I can see and understand, I don't think there is a more vulnerable experience than having a child. In all honesty, it sounds terrifying. To be that vulnerable. To experience a love that can make or break a person. To those who say being a mother is not a job, not a respectable role, I say you are utterly and completely wrong. Because from I can see, there is no stronger lover, fiercer fighter, and braver endurer than a mother.
When you're a parent, lines blur and black and white mixes and becomes gray. When you're a parent, you fumble through and make decisions that allow you to sleep at night. When you become a parent, morals become more important than ethics, and love becomes more important than law. A couple years ago there were firefighters who were killed in a fire started by a homeless women in Worcester, Massachusetts. She knew the fire had started and she left the building, but she never called 911 because she thought she might get into trouble. Six men died that night, and yet the State couldn't hold this women responsible, because in America, even if the consequences are tragic, you are not responsible for someone else's safety. You aren't obligated to help anyone in distress, not even if you were the one to start the fire. There are a lot of hard jobs out there. Firefighter, defense attorney, doctor. All tiring jobs that take a toll on you. What I've realized though, is that being a mother is harder than anything you would ever have to do in a burning building, courtroom, or operating table. I've realized that the law changes when you become a parent and that person in that burning building is your child. If that's the case, not only would everyone understand if you ran in to get your child, they'd practically expect it of you. You don't fear for yourself. You only fear for this little person you allowed to fill the spaces in your heart. Things change when you're a parent. You change.
In the book My Sister's Keeper, Sara Fitsgerald's daughter, Kate, is diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. Right before Kate is diagnosed, Sara sits in the hospital waiting room with her husband and four year-old Kate who has been repeatedly poked with needles for hours. Kate is miserably and her arms are as sore as her mother's heart from watching this happen to her child. When a nurse comes over and says they need to take more tests, Sara asks if they could only do a finger stick this time. The nurse replies by saying,"No, this is really the easiest way." Sara then replies, "Do you think that's really what I want to hear? When you go down to the cafeteria and ask for coffee, would you like it if someone gave you coke, because it's easier to reach? When you go to pay by credit card, would you like it if you were told that's too much hassle, so you'd better break out your cash? Do you think it's easy for me to be sitting here with my child and not have any idea what's going on or why you're doing all these tests? You think it's easy for her? Since when does anyone get the option of what's easiest?"
Now, Sarah Fitzgerald is a controlled and considerably reasonable women. She is kind and well mannered. But its when you mess with her child, part of her heart, the person she lives for, when you see this side of her.
Motherhood is a love only Jesus Christ can help a person tame. When you're aching with the loving fear for losing a child - whether that be emotionally or physically - and you feel like no one can understand and you're overwhelmed with a killing hurt, I imagine that's when Jesus comes, tears in his eyes, and wraps his arms around you and says, "I understand. I lost mine too." Is there a more beautiful example of love in the Bible than God giving His son? Every time I see a parents and child, I see the gospel. God giving up His son to die for us is something that I imagine can only mean even more when you're a parent.
Now, do I only see the terrifying venerability of having a child? No, of course not. I also see the joy, the smiles, the hugs the kisses, the pure love. It's enough to make your heart burst. I see the love. I see that it's worth it. As I grow older and try to understand more and more of this world I live in, I am continuously knocked over with the love of Jesus Christ - especially when I see the love a parent has for their child.
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