August 10th, 2021
I’ve mostly learned the ways to curb, deal with or soothe those devastating feelings of crushing loneliness I get when I think about my mom.
Mostly.
Sometimes something said will stick in my ribs, or hurt like chewed tinfoil in my head.
With those, too, I can usually use my tools to adjust my settings and resume normal operation (or, at least, as normal as I get).
There is one thing I don’t think I will ever be able to get over, though.
It’s when any mom refers to her son as her baby, regardless of his age.
That one, when bared, refuses to let go or let up.
And it might sound like I’m sharing this to call awareness to my sensitivity to it, but it’s not that at all. Honestly, I hope I can use it as a gift to any mom reading this.
Because telling your son that he is your baby, no matter how old he is, no matter what he’s done, no matter how successful or not he is, no matter who he is to anyone else, will most likely be the most significant validation he will receive in his life.
And he might roll his eyes, or push you away, or tell you to quit embarassing him, but he will never be able to express how much that means to him.
So I’m giving your baby’s secret away.
He loves you more than he’ll ever admit, or ever be able to. He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve all this love, and he’ll never think he does.
But he’ll know.
So, please, keep calling them your babies, with this knowledge that it kills me every time and it’s only because I know.
I’ll never get over it, because it was given to me to never get over.
It was given to me to remember that I was loved in a way that was more than I deserve, in a way that I will never understand.
The Den 