Deep thoughts

I usually post here just to get memories on "paper" aka cyberspace, but this is largely for my kids, and they deserve more than a play-by-play of what they did as kids. They really deserve to know a little more about me as their mom when they were little. So some of the feelings I've been having, I'm going to pour out. This may make no literary sense.

I love them and they know I love them. Which is marvelous but they really can't know. I pray they have kids, just so they learn how much I love them, b/c otherwise they won't ever totally understand. I hope I remember to tell them how much I love them every day of their lives, even when they are fourteen and hate me as much as they love me. I hope I can rein in how much I love them when I need to for their own sake, so that they can experience life as they should.

Life for them... oh may their lives be full. Laughter and love primarily. A wide variety of experiences. Friends who hold them up when they need it, who push them to expand their ideas of themselves and the world, who trust them enough to lean on them, who love them like family. The confidence in themselves do do whatever they want - whether it means being a ski bum or a nuclear physicist, an artist, author, doctor or rabbi. May they find joy all joys, no matter how small, and may they only stress about the big problems. All life has to offer. Of course there will be pain - but I hope it will be timely and with love and support as salve.

They love each other, and I hope their relationship continues to grow. As adults, may they have trust, love, and friendship, and see each other as not only sisters but friends. The last time my grandma and her sister said goodbye they were 90 and 88, and though they were such different people by then than who they'd been during their prime, their love was palpable. I wish that kind of love for my two girls.

I love them so much I can never live up to what I want to offer them as their mother. I want to show them the perfect love that is inside me, that is so impossible to get through the trappings of life, of simple humanity. I wish I could always be as patient and loving as the raw love inside me, I wish I always had the right words to say, I wish I could divine what the perfect decisions would be to help them grow into happy, secure women. I wish I could protect them from excess pain while still encouraging them to take life by the horns and experience it to the fullest. I wish I could say "Mommy will always come back to you" without knowing that someday I won't be around anymore and having to pray that they'll be grandparents before I leave them. I wish that every now and then I could just make time stand still for a second or two. Not permanently, just long enough for the moment to soak into my memory, perfectly and completely.