The light caught your hair in a way that made me pause.
Your face somewhere in between the baby I have known and the woman I have yet to meet.
My heart a little wrenched knowing how time has fallen so clumsily through my mama hands.
Because you were my first.
My first baby. My first sleepless night. My first mama everything.
Teaching me how to love all over again and yet somehow surviving all my ridiculous inexperience.
The neurotic schedules. The Pinterest-nightmares. The weird food. The parenting books. The perfect outfits. The irrational fear that every mom fail would lead to your utter ruin.
But here you are.
Beautiful. Strong. Kind.
And here I am.
Wondering how I didn’t see this before…
As if somewhere in the middle of your growing up, I grew up too. Into a place where grace holds more than your name. As though in every breath, every fear, every failure, its tenderness has made a way.
A way that I know will carry us through the coming years.
Years I thought would be like breathing but now know it’s more like stumbling.
Trying to let go of all my first-time mom insecurity. Wondering if I will get it all right or worse yet, believing I will get it all wrong. Knowing that in the deepest parts of me I just want to give you the grace I know I already need.
When you come to me tear-stained and broken. When you come to me angry and frustrated. When you wonder and question. When you need my touch more than you need my words. When you pull away and everything in me wants to pull you in tighter.
My heart wants to see you, hold you, and know you with the love of the One who knew and held you first.
Because more than anything, I long for you to know that when you go out into the world to tell your own story, every piece of my messy and imperfect love will go with you.
Holding onto the hope that one day it will carry you forward and all the way Home.