You Will Never Understand

“Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” ~ Elizabeth Stone

That feeling comes often for me, but so very much this week.  I don't know that, you - my child,  my flesh, my blood, my heart - will ever understand.

You will never know how much I prayed for you.

You will never be able to explain why I will save your baby teeth and that first lock of hair until the day that I die.

You will never comprehend that though I pretended to know all, I really knew nothing.  Nothing.

You will never figure out that I will never tire of taking your photo because I fear that I will forget all of your precious moments as I grow old.

You will never perceive how much I regret showing any little disappointment in or impatience with you - in reality, I was only seeing that in myself.

You will never see how sad I am about the time I wasted doing things I thought were important (but truly were not) instead of spending more time just being with you.

You will never be aware of the number of tears I have cried for you.

You will never believe that your accomplishments are secretly mine.

You will never understand that your pain is my pain - only magnified by a thousand; that your heartbreaks are also mine.

You will never recognize that all I want is to take that pain and the memory of it from you forever.

You will never grasp that your fears, your anxieties, your regrets are my own failures in guiding, teaching, raising you.

You will never make sense of how I wish I would have done some things so differently.

You will never begin to even fathom that my true joy is found in yours.

You will never realize how different and yet how similar you and I really are.

You will never take in how earth shattering it was for me to let go of your hand as you learned to take your first steps, or let you leave for your first day of Kindergarten, or watch you go on that last day of high school ... never mind leaving you at college.

Oh, and college ... how it kills me to not have gone myself only because I don't know how to help you through this new world.

My child, you will never understand any of this.  Never.  Until your heart is walking around outside of your body.  Only then will you understand and know how very much I love you ...

Forever and for always.