On My Heart: I am here

When I was a little girl and I was scared, or I was sad, or lonely, I would run to find my mother. She would be in the kitchen, cooking dinner or washing a dish, or sitting on the couch with a book or magazine in her hands, and I would call out her name in that desperate way children do and she would immediately hold her arms out, waiting for me to come to her.

And we would embrace, and I would pull myself into her, and succumb to her warmth and her love and her immediate and focused care. She would pull me up to her, my arms and legs a tangled mess around her and my head resting on her chest, my right ear against the beating of her heart, letting me fall into her completely.

And then she would ask me what was wrong. And sometimes I would cry. And sometimes I would just be silent. But no matter what, she would always let me stay in her arms as long as I needed and she would always say,

I am here.

In the fall of 2011, when our plans to become parents through adoption failed, I sat on my couch in the silence of my house and sobbed and I wanted my mother. And when she came over, I let myself call out her name in that desperate way that a child does and I wrapped myself in her arms and I wept in a way I had not in my whole life. She listened and she rocked me and she pulled me close to her chest so I could lay my right ear against the beating of her heart and she said,

I am here.

Now when my own daughter, who is too young to know real heartache, or sadness, or loneliness, cries out for me in that desperate way a child who really needs their mother does, I pull her up to me, her arms and legs a tangled mess around my body and she rests her head on my chest, her right ear against the beating of my heart. And I rock her and kiss her head and stroke her face and I let her stay in my arms as long as she needs me. And then I say,

I am here.

I know there will be days upon days when she does not need me like this, but she will grow and she will see small bits of the cruelness of life and she will fall down, or be treated with disregard. I hate that she will have those kinds of moments, the inevitable ones that mean she is growing up and learning and finding out how everything in the world works. And on those days when she feels scared or sad or lonely, I hope that she will continue to seek me out, and let me remind her the way my mother reminded me, still reminds me, that there is always time to be held and enveloped in love and to be told,

I am here.