Motherhood

 I was reading Cold Tangerines (thank you Auntie Kate) by Shauna Niequest before Maverick was born and when I read this part, I knew I had to include it here:

I will change his diapers and feed him and keep him clean and warm.  Those are the physical things I can do for him.  But what I want to do for him takes my breath away.  I want to twist and remake the world around his little self, to shine it up and rearrange it and make it great and special for him.  I want to walk ahead of him, making sure things are safe, and walk behind him, keeping an eye on him.  I want every day of his life to be happy, and I feel like I could move the sun with the intensity I feel.  I knew that a baby would be vulnerable and would need my protection, physically and otherwise.  But what I know now is that it doesn't matter how big a son gets, a mother always feels, however illogically, that she should be there to save him from whatever it is that can hurt him...the size of her love for him, bigger than the ocean, beyond words and logic and sense.  And I feel it to for my son, like a sickness or falling in love or falling down the stairs, its inevitability and its enormity.