Ugh.

I know I have talked about this before, but so much changes when you become a mom. Yes, the normal perhaps expected stuff like suddenly feeling quite ok with the fact that you have poop smeared on your sleeve or that you and Elmo might soon have a personal relationship if you read anymore books about him. But also in the way you view the world. We have had several tragedies lately that I am sure you will read about one day. The Tsunami in Japan has been really bad. There have been thousands of stories of loss and struggle but I remember the one that has tugged on me the most. It was a picture of a father outside a morgue where he learned his wife and two daughters had perished. I thought of your dad and walked around in a daze for most of the day.


Then these little things sneak up and hit you. Right now I am reading this crime mystery about a detective solving a series of murders. Usually this author skips any gory details but this time he decided to write in detail about the moment of one girls death (she is maybe 23 or so) and how she is being drowned and lifts her head above water one last time to shout Mama!


I set the book right down and felt this incredible weight coming down on me. The weight of protecting you and keep you safe. The fact that I might lose you someday in a store or at the park and that someone out there would want to hurt you. How can I protect you when you are 23 and living on your own? From bad boyfriends and strange men and weirdoes? I just can’t and the helplessness of that feeling is all encompassing.


I stayed up later than I wanted to because of that one word in that book. So because I am pregnant and irrational, I walked to the back door and threw the book as far as I could into the woods…. Don’t tell your dad that part he will think I am crazy.


I never want you to stop exploring and loving life, just please, for your mama’s sake. Be careful. You are far too loved to lose.