Dear Alex,

A small addendum to my recent update. I wanted to wait to write about this until it happened again & the feeling was fresh in my mind. This occurred last night.

My young toddler, barely beyond the brink of infancy, wakes in the middle of the night crying as though he’s lost his last friend in the world.
I go to check on him, and nothing appears outwardly wrong. A bad dream perhaps, or teething. Whatever it was, he quiets the moment I pick him up.
I kiss his forehead, hold him close to me and settle down into the rocking chair. He breathes a heavy sigh of relief and burrows into my embrace, facing me belly to belly with his cheek buried in my elbow. The way we’ve done a thousand times before.
But now he is so big that his feet hang past the side of my lap, just over the edge of the chair. Snuggly moments like this are so few and far between these days that, even though my bed is calling, I decide to sit with him for awhile.
I rub his back and lean my head sideways against the headrest so that I can relax while staring at that sweet face. Before long he’s back in Dreamland, the pacifier drooping at the edge of his lips.
As I start to follow him there, suddenly he reaches his little hand up unconsciously and touches my face, caressing my cheek and then resting his hand on my chest.
And there we stay, in the quiet abyss between awake and asleep, feeling one another’s heartbeat. It feels like forever. It feels like no time at all.
But more than anything else, it feels like peace.

Times like this remind me why I became a mother. The depth of this bond, this love, the way you need me and I need you more than anything or anyone else in the world, is unlike any other experience I’ve had in this life. I know I say this a lot in these letters, but it is truly a blessing.

All my love,
Mom