No one ever tells you

It is the things you cannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you. ” — Jodi Picoult

Today, as I sit here, my heart just breaks for a dear friend.

No one ever tells you when you have children all the bad and miserable things to expect.  If they do, you don’t take them seriously.  You just think about tiny dresses and pig tails or baby kisses and toddler hugs. You think about being the perfect parent and having the perfect children.

They don’t tell you about projectile vomiting that always finds its way to land somewhere on your body.  It doesn’t matter if your standing four feet away, it’s inevitable it will get on you.  It’s also not mentioned that the vomiting never happens in the bathroom, and definitely not near the toilet.  It’s usually on the carpet or couch.

They don’t tell you about waking up to screaming and spending the day with screaming and going to bed with screaming.

They don’t tell you how often you’ll wipe snot and spit and vomit and poop up.

They don’t tell you the countless times you stay up so that you can be there if they stop breathing.  They don’t tell you the hours you’ll lie awake praying and reasoning with God to keep your baby safe.

No one tells you about the never-ending sleepless nights either.  The nights that you’re gripped with fear that your precious child might die.  In infancy it’s SIDs.  Then toddler and preschool years it’s because of a fall from the top of the swing set.  Even though they seem fine, you are still terrified that maybe you missed something, did you put them to bed with a concussion?  Did you neglect to see something?  The elementary years are racked with fears of some rare and silent diseases.  Childhood Leukemia or seizures that stop them from breathing in the middle of the night.

I think parents like watching their kids sleep, not only to see them so peaceful and sweet after they’ve spent the day screaming and terrorizing everything all day long, but because it’s a huge sense of relief to see their chest rise and fall.

As they get older, you start to sleep a little bit better.   The fears of SIDs and concussions and sudden diseases taper off.  These fears are replaced by thousands of other fears.  Fears more horrific than the rest.  Fears of temptations and peer pressure.  Fears of drugs and sex.  Fears of slippery slopes and deep abysses.

You realize that more than anything, you’d go back to those sleepless nights.  You’d deal with the cranky toddler and the vomit all over your favorite sweater without ever complaining.   You’d happily deal with explosive diapers and trying to reason with a two-year-old.

You wish for the days when you could solve all of your kids problems before dinner.  When you could calm all of their fears.  When they never loved anyone more than they loved you. When the biggest decision they had to make was if they should wear their dinosaur underwear or their the monkey ones.

But it’s not that way.

From the moment that the umbilical cord is cut, never again can you protect them like you did in your womb.  Each day, they grow a little bit farther away.  They strive for independence.  They yearn for freedom. They push themselves away.  They distance themselves.

And this hurts.  Because just as no one tells you how much you’ll love your children, no one tells you how much they can hurt you.  Each betrayal of trust,  each disappointment,  each step away from our values, each “I hate you” is like a stab in the heart.

You want to cry out that your just person.  Being your mom does not make me invisible.  It does not make me perfect.  Being your mom does not make me void of feelings.  I don’t know everything.  Quite the opposite, I know that I’m just fumbling here.  I’m doing the best I know how.  All I know is that I love you, demon teenager of mine.

This teen was once part of you.  You grew those little lips in your belly.  You held their tiny fingers as they learned to walk.  You dried their tears.  You held them as they cried.  You dreamed of their future.  You pray for their happiness.

They don’t know how each of their hurts cuts deeply in your heart.  Every one of their failures, you carry the responsiblity too.  If you would have just been sterner, gentler, more open, harder, easier on them…

They also don’t know that it doesn’t matter how terrible they are.  How bad they mess things up.  How deep they get.  How disappointed you are.  How disappointed they are.  You will always love them.  There isn’t a moment that you would ever love them less.

No one tells you that.