The Aches Of Motherhood

Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: . . . “A sword will pierce your own soul too.”

—Luke 2:34–35

I know, cognitively, that all of parenting is an effort to give your kids the ability to live without you, beyond you. I know that Henry will make me mad, and probably date girls who wear too much makeup, or he’ll have bad table manners to spite me, or play dangerous sports. He will break my heart into slivers over and over as he grows away from me, and he should grow away from me. That’s the only right thing for him to do.

When I was pregnant with Henry and my brother was in a bad car accident, I felt one of the first splitting aches of motherhood. I felt that nothing in the world could hurt my son, that I am superhuman in my love for him, that if he needed me, I would fly or bend steel or wrinkle time with the force of my love. In the same moment, I knew that all mothers feel that way, and that all mothers also feel the exact inverse, the terrifying awareness that people run red lights, and that we won’t be there to stand in front of our son’s cars, shielding them from danger with our superhuman selves.