Motherhood moment

Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullabye
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me.

(lyrics excerpt from Lullabye by Billy Joel)

Does a mother ever get over the beauty of her sleeping child? The womanchild had her wisdom teeth removed today. Her face is swollen, and she keeps putting blood soaked pads of gauze in my hands. I've spent long, quiet minutes sitting on an ottoman by the couch, massaging her back, legs and feet. Our small white and gray cat, Dusty, has joined in by kneading my back with a cat's loving needle prick acknowledgement of mother and security. Her pain medication keeps her in that limbo zone between wakefulness and sleep most of the time, but sleep does come to her as sweet relief.

I see her stretched out on the couch. Her body holds all the promise of young womanhood; her legs, long, graceful and womanly, her feet pushed out from the covers as she has done since infancy. Eyelashes cast a shadow on her cheeks, and her few freckles stand out in strong relief against the heightened paleness of her skin. The swelling makes her face more childlike and vulnerable, banishing her usual expression of lurking smart ass-ery, intelligent mischief and deeply concealed angst.

I am humbled and stilled, as I was when she was a baby drifting off to a milk sated sleep at my breast. May she find that peace again.

motherhood