I am only who I am today because of you. Not in simple ways, or in little quirks, but in the most beautiful of ways. So many things have shaped my life but none have shaped it the ways you have. In ways that are so deep they shake the core of who I am. Your love makes me remember the little girl I could have been. The one that wanted to sing and dance and laugh and play all day. The one that loved so deeply that everyone pushed away.
My love for you doesn’t end. It doesn’t end with behaviors, whether good or bad. This love doesn’t end with hard times, or in times of joy. It isn’t a love that makes me fear because it is a love on solid ground. I can breathe into it and naturally embrace it all. It’s a love that I give freely without any need for it in return.
And yet you do. On my worst of days, you see me and you love me. In my troubles and in my joys, you love me still. In my silliness you laugh at me, but your love never turns from me. I’m the one you cry out to when you are afraid or hurt. When you need comfort, you seek me always. And even when I’m not there you seek me once again.
This love I can’t express with words. I am falling short. I write and tears stream down my face and I can’t even tell you why. I think it is because this love is so secure. You have seen every side of me and haven’t turned away. You cling to me and trust in me and let that girl come out. She has grown up now, but she still loves to sing and dance and laugh and play. When I am with you all my insecurities melt away. Confident and without doubt that you will always be, someone I will protect and love every single day.
I brought you into this world so I could love and protect you. So I could help shape your world and provide a security for you I never had. I wanted to prove that a parent could love their child in a way that I never was. What I never expected is that you were going to do the same for me. That your love was going to give me the stability I needed. To grow and change and face my deepest fears.
My love for you changed me but even more your love for me has changed me. I am to be your foundation for your life, instead you became mine. I was a happy child stuck within a broken heart. More insecure than anyone in the room, I held back my laughter and silliness. I allowed my voice to be broken and silenced. But for you I don’t hold back. You let me share the world with you and because of that I have found my voice.
I fought to heal for you because on my own I wasn’t worthy. Being your mom has given me my worth because I look at you and I see yours.
For all of us that didn’t have the stable love we craved so desperately as a child, I have learned, that to love another in the way we never were brings a healing and stability that can fill all we missed. Most of us are fearing to give the very thing that will bring the healing we most desire.
Love.
I feared to love myself, as if I would let myself down. As if those words and looks from others were truth. They weren’t.
My boys have shown me different and the tears just won’t stop coming. The pool of love inside me has grown so much bigger than the pain. These tears don’t stem from hurt or loss but from the best of places.
A love so deep it never ends.
I love you, my boys. More than you will ever know.
Jill
