Shower Thoughts

In our house, the unspoken rule is that while either one of us is in the shower the other will do what they can to keep the kids downstairs. Ok, it's not unspoken. We're in agreement that this is, some days, our only time "alone". (This is also - a lot of the time - the reason I make no excuses to run several times a week. Otherwise I risk no me time...and I need me time.)

I digress.

This morning was one of fun. We broke out of the usual get up, play for a few minutes, eat the routine bowl of cheerios/original shredded wheat/shreddies/blackberries combo. Mainly because we had only a spot of milk left and selfishly I wanted it for my coffee. (Coffee is also on the list of "needs"...right at the top with me time.) So, we goofed around and the boys polished off 8 of the carrot/raisin/banana mini muffins I made yesterday...with peanut butter. Followed by an apple each. (As a side note, I think I'll take a second mortgage out simply to pay our food bill by the time they are ten.)

After the fun, they decided to create envelopes in which they wanted to put the seeds from said apples so that when they took their seeds outside to plant, (which I believe took place in our sand/dirt pile an hour later,) they could keep them safe. Ironically but not suprisingly, Tait dumped his somewhere between the kitchen table and the dirt pile.

All this to say it was a fun morning and one which did not require me much "alone in the shower time". So well after Ben had left for work, I left them downstairs with tape (eek), paper, and felts.

I hopped in the shower, hoping for a few minutes before one of the two came upstairs either to play or to taddletale on the other. (I placed my money on the latter.)

I digress.

I was doin' my thing, enjoying the heat after a chilly, beautiful early morning run and basking in the knowledge that in no less than 3 days, one Mama will be united (at long last) with her daughter. Hers has been a journey I would wish upon no one. But they are meant to be together and in the end, that is all that matters.

The peace and the joy of the moment lead me to thoughts that have been but fleating ones in the past. Yet, instead of shrugging them off as usual and not trying to relish in what it will actually be like, I let myself in...I tried to feel what it would be like - what it will be like.

In that moment when this Mama will feel the joy of holding her baby; her daughter. The one meant to be joined with her two blonde brothers. The one whose birth mother went through the physical pains of labour, followed by the ache of knowing she would not and likely could not raise her...for one reason or other.

What will it be like?

To feel her skin touch mine.

To feel the soft, gentle baby silk hands, face, cheek touch mine. To smell the sweetness somehow gifted to every child by the grace of God. To hold her tight and close, and without a word communicate "I will never let go". To know that in order to feel this joy, this utterly unspeakable moment of wonder, another has felt an unspeakable pain. Tragic loss or rather sacrifice; a moment I could, nor will ever fully comprehend (simply because I was not there) in order to offer something more to her child. A mother's love knows no bounds.

I'm not trying to naively believe the moment we first meet won't be filled, quite possibly with cries and "who is this strange person" saddness. But when the dust settles, when we find ourselves gazing in to one another's eyes, knowing ourselves and finding one another as mother and daughter...

...I let myself go to that place this morning.

It was surreal.

Devastating while simultaneously wonderous.

Distantly real.

Yet, too far off to really allow myself to feel all there is and all there will be.

...Today - a day in which I find myself aching to know her - I let myself go to that place.