Saturday 17 March 2012

A Moment of Paradise

As an adult, life sometimes gets too heavy, too busy, running around with too many balls held in the air, trying too hard to achieve the impossible... It gets hard to remember to just sit and enjoy, to lose yourself in the moment...

And sometimes, in between responsibilities, little things sneak up on you, facing you with a different world where the balls are put on the ground without a notice and time seems to freeze...

Sunday morning... The one day a week when I can just sleep in with a pillow over my head, wrapped between crisp bedsheets, knowing I won't have to rush anywhere...

After a Saturday of running around in heavy rain, waking up with a bright ray of sun sneaking between curtains, I become aware of a perfect and soft little body glued next to me and wrapped in my arms... Soft, soft skin, still having the baby chicken smell so specific to little children, mixed with the sweet smell of hair spray... Tiny ponytails gently tickling my face and little strong muscles under my fingers... Without opening my eyes, I just lay there, becoming aware of my daughter's soft breath, and the way her tiny body still feels so much part of my own...

In a year or two, as she will grow from a cheeky little girl into a tiny lady like her older sister, the boundaries between her body and mine will harden and hugging her, with equal as much love, I will know, on some visceral level, that it is a person that belongs to herself... I will search then for the soft shape of her body, but I will be hugging someone that knows who she is and where we stop...

And there is pride in that, to look upon your child becoming more and more an individual. There is pride in watching as their wings grow and they start slowly and surely, navigating their own lives... But next to the pride, there is a touch of loss for all the years and experiences that will not come back...

I watch my oldest daughter, a little lady now, still so sweet and still looking so small and young in her sleep, and my heart fills with love and pride, remembering a time when she was still my baby and her world revolved so much around me... From being a Moon revolving around my Earth as I was spinning around the Sun, she grew into her own planet, still connected, but individual and with an independent orbit around the same Sun... And while it a wonderful experience, as you watch and assist, there is a sadness in knowing that from now on you can't anymore protect as you used to do, in knowing that life will deal blows that you can't anymore take for them and all you can do is to share your own wisdom and a shoulder.

But as those thoughts fly through my head watching her sleeping, the other one, with the little body glued to mine stirs in her sleep... For now, even though she already started on the journey that will make her more and more her own person, she is still my soft little baby... As I hug her, I know that appearances are deceiving, that under the softness of her skin there are strong muscles that can do things I can only dream about, that under the sleeping smile there is a will as strong as mine... I hug her closer and gently her little hands wrap around my neck, two souls wrapped into what feels like one body... Her eyelashes flutter and with a smile, her soft, sleepy voice says: "I love you, mama!"

It is one of those rare moments when as a parent I can let the questions and worries rest, and I can just feel the perfection of the moment, the divine perfection of the two of them, knowing that I had a little part in creating and shaping this two wonderful persons... As I watch them, I feel a deep peace while my heart is close to bursting with so much love, and I whisper, "Thank you for being my children!".

Because in moments like this, I realize once again the incredible blessings my daughters are to me. And the days when I feel my hair growing white with worry for them, the days when I run in circles not sure of what I am doing with them, the days when I feel like hiding in the cupboard  instead of dealing with another temper tantrum, are made worthwhile by moments of paradise like this one when I can just cherish the incredible joy of being a parent...   

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