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.

Standing in line, license in had. People around me. No one talks to me. No one smiles. There faces all vary in emotion. Some have hard lines of defiance, others sparkles and stars emit from there eyes whole others have the look of defeat. What's mine? The look of shame.Feeling lowly eyes diverted from every ones. I try to maintain composure but it simply comes across as cold. I'm not cold, just trying to preserve the last bit of dignity that remains.I hand the lady behind the thick glass my license. She writes my information upon a log. Is it the lamb's book of life or the devils book of advocates? To me the book of despair. The book of humiliation. The book of a chapter that should never have been written. Some epic novel that doesn't seem like it's my life but someone else’s.I sit, wiping the chair first. As if this will magically cleanse the degradation that has sat there before me. I wait. Head swirling. Unable to hold to any thought. Unable to grasp the emotion. There's none. My head erect, shoulders squared, back straight as I sit. Legs crossed, right over left, hands folded precise and direct. Nose tilted slightly up. Am I haughty? Prideful? No none of these things. None at all. I've been humbled through it all. But the actress in me covers for my shortcomings and falls. The actress in me...refuses to convey to this audience my chagrin. It refuses to convey to this audience the self-disgust, the self-reproof that is harbored behind its opaque window. Look in it invites and see the colors of honor. The colors of unreproach. But you will not find the tears. You will not find the loathing. You will not find the knees that are bent by the bedside holding on to the folds of a comforter, face buried in the side of the bed begging for the pain to stop unable to stand from the shock that has been delivered.You will not find the mouth covered by the hands as I sit in the restroom, the furthest place to be isolated, tears silently dripping upon the floor. Quiet so no one hears the heartache that has ripped me in to pieces.
What you will find is the strength, the determination and the unspeakable joy that can never be taken. What you will find is a zest for life and for human kind. What you will find is a part of love that never died. That will never wither. What you will find is honesty and respect. What you will find...is my character. Something that can never be destroyed.