For Crying Out Loud, I’m Talking LOVE
by
A heart is not measured by how much you love but how much you are loved by others.
~ Wizard of Oz
Love is a funny thing. It makes us do funny things. But in my case, it tends NOT to bring tears to my eyes.
When CS got down on bended knew in a horse-drawn carriage under the blue shooting stars in Celebration in the Oaks to ask me to marry him, it was love. He still rolls his eyes that I didn’t shed a tear of joy. When he and his friend returned months before our wedding after a three-week trek in Europe, the friend’s girlfriend cried as she ran to her beau’s arms. I just sheepishly smiled and ran to CS’s arms.
Don’t get me wrong, I love deeply, and my love for CS is unending. It’s just, that, well, I’m not a warm and fuzzy person. For example, if you are a friend and break down in tears in front of me, I WILL hug you, but I will say “I’m going to hug you” before I do so as not to startle you.
This is true for my love of my friends, my husband, my family. I’d do anything for anyone I love, but give a big HUG or sweet little nothings? Just not the way I roll.
With one exception. Sun, of course.
When I first set my eyes on her in the operating room, I wept. And I couldn’t even see her that well because my glasses weren’t on. But all the concern I’d had for her growing in me, all the love I’d honed for those 35 weeks of pregnancy, all the overwhelming emotion welled out of my eyes and I cried unabashedly.
But that was SO three years ago. I now have a toddler on my hands. One that is learning to sometimes be sassy or rude or petulant or spoiled. But who also has that innocence that only a child can possess.
I lay with her each night in her new big full size bed. I read stories to her; I sing to her; I show her pictures of when she was a baby. And it never fails, never, that my heart grows a bit each night. My heart feels like a partially deflated balloon, and each night another wrinkle is blown taut.
I know that being three, Sun is still earning love for me to put in the bank that can be drawn upon when she’s older and testing me further. But I cannot help but feel that she is the external manifestation of my heart. And her daddy’s too. And I suppose all parents of toddlers feel the same way.
Children are the best hope we have in the world. They are our future. And to believe in them; to allow the fullness of our love for them to be recognized; to wallow in the joy of their open-eyed wonder is a most precious gift.
Heey! We really are the same person! I, too, don’t cry (not anymore, anyway) but I’ve never ever been one to cry from stress or sad movies or being upset. But if I ever have a baby one day, I think I would probably weep.
Love for ones own child is a special thing. I remember telling a friend at my son’s 4th birthday, that I never knew I could love someone four years long and not feel one moment of disappointment in that person. Now my son is turning 20 years old and I still feel so. For all the worries and challenges their beings bringings into our lives, they do have the ability to make our hearts expand mightily.
I can still get all weepy over how much I love my now near adult children. I will be a terrible hot mess with grandchildren.
Tara R.´s last [type] ..Versatile- packrattery by any other name
I have not been blessed with children but having nephews that have children brings my emotions out. But then again I have always been an emotional person. Especially the youngest one when he had his children. I was so taken aback with the beautiful child(ren) that he sired that I could do nothing but cry – I was feeling pride and excitement . I was so filled with emotion at the time I can’t imagine how it would be if I had children of my own.
nice post missy.
let’s have coffee so i can give you a big ole hug. :p i’d drive you crazy. i’m the huggy, feely, kissy, type. in short, i’m all over whoever i’m with.
i promise you, as Sun grows.. your love for her will grow as well. oh, you’ll have bumps along the way, that’s life. but the true, blue love a parent has for a child is unmeasurable.
XOXOXOXO
termite.
termite´s last [type] ..the most beautiful woman