The events in Connecticut last week made me just want to hold my kids close and reminded me of this little note I jotted down several years ago.
I held him in my arms and I knew that I would never again be the person I was just seconds before.
Seconds before, I had no idea of what it was to love. I had connected with the growing life in my womb. I had said “I love you” to my husband, parents, a few friends and relatives, and I had meant it every time, but on that day, I realised that those words were trivial, passé compared to the feeling that overwhelmed my being the first time I looked at my son.
The feeling was palpable; I now knew love intimately, I touched it, smelt it, inhaled it; the love I felt for my son, my baby boy, a life first thrust upon me and now entrusted to me. I saw him clearly despite the mist of anesthesia and my memory of the pain that had wreaked havoc on my womb again and again.
I knew now that I could have endured that pain indefinitely had I known the reward that awaited me. I pulled him close to me and gently kissed his forehead. His mouth brushed my cheek and his tongue touched a tear on my cheek, his first taste of his mother’s nurture. I cried and cried, vowing to protect this gift forever.