Being a mom

I'm skipping a bit of the timeline for this one post. I'll get back on track hereafter.

There was an event in my life recently--within my extended family--that made me realize how much being a mom has changed my heart and my soul.  Perhaps you have felt like this, too.  As soon as I became a mom, in that very moment that I first held our son in my arms, one day after his birth, everything changed.  Everything!  And I don't mean the stuff every parent talks about--sleep deprivation, choice of diapers and formula, the brand of crib or sheets, taking 45 minutes to get out the house.  I mean that FEELING of feeling EVERY. SINGLE. THING.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were watching a TV show.  In one of the beginning scenes, a mother in despair jumped off a building with her 3 month old son in her arms.  It's TV.  I get it, but even as I recall the scene, I'm in tears.  At the moment I saw it, I burst in to tears as if it were my own child who had been heaved to his death.  I don't mean to sound morbid.  My point is that I FEEL EVERY. SINGLE. THING that happens to a child.

Before children, of course I felt sadness and sorrow at wrongs done to children no matter what kind of wrong it was, no matter by whom it was perpetrated.  Children are innocent creatures to be protected by everyone.  Or, they should be.  Once I had children, though, those feelings were ramped up to a level I cannot even begin to explain or comprehend.  When one parent suffers, every parent suffers.  When one child suffers, no matter the age of the child, whether a tiny baby or an adult, every parent feels it.  I know this to be true.

Though this event in my extended family had little to do with me personally, it had everything to do with me as a mom.  I looked at this situation that had happened--to the child of a relative--and thought, "I want to kick someone's ass."  There, I said it.  I told my husband that if ANYONE ever hurt my kid, well... need I say more?  He hugged me and comforted me, having anticipated that this would be my reaction.  Even recalling this moment makes me cry.  The pain I feel for everyone--especially the parents--is almost indescribable.

When I was in 8th grade, my mom, my dad, my older brothers, and I went on a sailing trip.  My parents chartered a sailboat out of Fort Meyers, FL, and we sailed and we sailed.  Until we ran aground.  The ocean ain't like Lake Michigan.  That's for darn sure.  You have to pay attention to depth. HA! Long story short, we had to get tugged off the sandbar.  To do that, the other boat had to tie something (I can't recall what) around the mast of our boat and then pull.  My mom and I wanted to get out the way and let my dad and brothers handle the hookup.  So, we went below deck.  As the other boat started to tug us, of course the boat started to heel over, and my mom and I both feared the galley would start to fill with water.  We were nowhere even close to a situation like that, but in the moment, it was REALLY scary.

My mom looked at me, grabbed me, and shoved me up the stairs and above deck without any thought of herself.  She only cared about me and making sure that I could get out of there in one piece.  It was a classic "Mama Bear" moment.  I know it sounds so silly, but I have called her Mama Bear ever since.  I can still see her face, and it's been 26 years.

THAT is what I mean--that feeling of wanting nothing more than to protect your children.  To move mountains, to do ANYTHING to save them, to protect them, to guard them.  Sometimes I feel like I just want to put my kids in a bubble, put them and their bubble in their rooms and never let them out.