Joyous Holidays

Joy fills the air and laughter fills your ears. Smiles on people’s faces and you can’t help but feel the heart soften.
Ah yes, it softens. Yes the holidays once again are near. With that brings the reminders why I just really do not like the holidays…
I just left my young sons room where he lay in his bed just staring at the wall as he rested his head on his flannel covered pillow. I asked what was wrong, he said nothing. I told him goodnight, I loved him and that is when he turned to me. In a voice that you could tell mustered all the courage he had, he asked, “Mom, do you know where dad is yet?’
I stopped. Looked into his eyes and saw the tears he was fighting back and I walked over to him. I sat on the bed, wrapping my arm across him tightly. I breathed in deeply, here, my son needed an answer and I wish I could have given him the one he sought. Instead, with heavy disappointment, yet with all the tenderness a mother’s heart can carry I answered ‘No baby, but as soon as I do, I will let you know.”
The room grew still. The air grew thick with sorrow and longing. The pain weighing so heavily it’s as if gravity tripled in that very moment. I stroked my son’s hair gently and did not move from that spot.

Watching the tears of abandonment, of loneliness, form in my baby’s eyes as he longed for someone who would not come. As he ached for someone who would never again hold him. I tried to soothe his hurt. I tried to mend the tare in his heart. I tried to patch the hole that gapped with loss, but I could not. There are some things even all the love in a mother’s heart cannot heal. There are some things all a mother’s magical kisses cannot soothe. This is one of those.

Yes, it’s the holidays.
I remember why I hate the holidays.

Nothing else matters

What is it like to be a single mother? What is it like to be a son without a father?

Sitting in the midst of the night. The dishwasher running, the dryer humming. Tired from the long day of work, making dinner, doing dishes, cleaning the house or at least trying. Yet you find the strength to hold your son with his head pressed tightly to your chest.

You wrap your arms around him as securely as you can and rock him while he presses against you. His tears catching upon your shirt. The tears form the puddle of the river his heart is crying. Yet you can do nothing to mend the hole. You can do nothing to stop the hurt that is pulsing throughout him. All you can do is sit, stroke his hair, pat his back, and hold him tightly to your bosom.

You can do nothing but kiss his cheeks, his forehead and whisper how much you love him. You can do nothing while he longs for a father's touch.

These are the moments when your heart breaks. When your heart aches with every beat of his crying agony. This is the moment when nothing else matters.
This is the moment when friends, work, loves, when none of it matters.

This is the moment when you realize that you are all he has.

This is the moment you realize that everything you do is for him.

This is the moment when you realize that you have to give it all you have to make a way for him.

This is the moment when you realize you have to dig in even further and pull out every bit of determination, strength, endurance, courage, and will that you have and persevere on.
This is the moment when you realize you can' t look at what you don't have but grab a hold of what you do and make it better.

This is the moment where you realize that your petty wants for love, for affection, for a mate are so minor in the face of what you have to do.

In the face of what lies before you.

In the face of what you have rocking, steadily crying in your hands.

This is the moment

where you are

mom.