I don't think I ever really knew the depths of your heart until I had a child of my own. The first time you had to leave us after Bjørn was born, I wept. All of a sudden I knew exactly how deep your love for us is, and I hated watching you leave.
I have always known that you love me. I have always cherished our relationship. But I never fully understood that mama-love until I had children of my own.
I would die for my children, in a heartbeat. I would give my lung, my kidney, my bone marrow, my blood... whatever they needed I would give them! And I know you would do the same for us.
Such a crazy, intense, mind-blowing love this is. And I don't think any child can really understand it until they become a parent themselves. I might even go so far as to say only a woman, only a mom, can fully understand the depths of that love.
The intensity of feeling a baby grow and kick and move inside of you and watching them enter this world from your body. Of knowing that they were prayed for and desired and brought forth through blood, sweat and tears. The insanity of sleepless newborn nights and fussy baby days... crazy toddler years and dramatic teenage tears.
All of it wrapped in a fog-like blanket of love. A blanket that covers all the hard times and erases them ever so gently from our memories so that when we look at our 2 year olds and dream of another baby, we have already forgotten the pain of childbirth and the difficulty of seemingly-endless sleepless nights.
And then we love them through the growing years. We watch them slowly find their own footing in life. We love and pray and hold on to their little hearts as tight as we can, and yet at the same time we have to let go as they step away a tiny bit farther every day until they are grown, and completely separate. Walking away and then coming back as friends.
Peers. And yet still children. Blood of my blood. Heart of my heart. That same deep, all-consuming mama-love. Never changing. All-consuming. Wow.
I love you mom. More than I ever knew I did before I became a mom myself!
