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Dearest TJ,
It is so very hard to believe that 21 years have gone by since the day I first held you in my arms. You were the one that made me understand that the heart is a truly amazing thing, that it can expand way beyond the physical limits of the body. The day you were born, my heart grew a hundred times over and filled with love. A love that you will not really grasp yourself until you also stand in the role of parent looking down for the first time on your own child.
While I sometimes wish for another chance to get one of your little boy hugs or spend another day holding your little hand, I realize that is just plain selfish of me. You are everything that I would wish for you and so much more than I could every have imagined on that evening 21 years ago when I held you for the first time.
My wish for you as you embark on adulthood is that you see what your father and I see in you – a smart, handsome, funny, loving and kind young man who makes his parents very, very proud. While you step your feet further and further away from our home and into the world, remember that you are loved beyond the mere words I can write on this page. I know that you will do great things and you will do them with that wonderful smile and kindness that I have seen in your heart throughout the past 21 years. Those that are fortunate enough to cross paths with you as you walk through this journey called life will come to know you like I know you and they will be all the better for that.
Be kind to those you come upon in this life and share your smile, your laughter and your talents. Even at 21 years of age, an adult to all the world, you are and always will be my baby.
I love you forever. Happy Birthday!
(The woman who has the privilege to call herself your)
Mom
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I am generally a pretty mild mannered person. I don’t much like confrontation so I do my best to avoid it. However sometimes, out of the blue, you get the hairs on the back on your neck to stand up and that weird feeling rising from the pit of your stomach. Your ire is raised.
This in particular happens when one of my kids gets hurt or disappointed. As a parent and particularly, a mom I don’t think that there is anything worse than seeing disappointment or pain register on one of your kids’ faces. There is some primordial response that rises from the depth of a mother’s very being when that happens. The desire to protect, to fix it, to make it all right and to see that those that caused the hurt or disappointment are punished. It’s strange, because you cannot understand why you are feeling this incredible fierceness, this overwhelming protectiveness. It can turn a mild mannered person into a bit of a crazy woman. Sometimes you know the person or persons who did it and sometimes you don’t — it’s a total stranger. In either event, I think other mothers would agree with me when I say that whoever they are, you can feel like you want to hurt them because they hurt your baby — even if your baby is a teenager and whatever happened was obviously a misunderstanding. Rational thought freezes somewhere in your brain when the mama lioness in you lifts her head to protect her cubs. It’s odd that it happens automatically, without any warning or control.
Amazing how humans really don’t vary much from animals in some contexts. The desire to protect, to shield and to fix it are there in all of us — human or beast.
Happenings on the Hill 