Today my six-year-old was unusually quiet on the way to school. When I asked her if she was okay, she replied, “I’m not ready to talk about it,” her face withdrawn and sullen as she stared out the window.
As we pulled into the parking lot, she unbuckled her seat belt and grabbed my neck, sobbing, “I just don’t want to lose you.”
It didn’t take me long to realize: she is me.
We share the same fear.
I don’t ever want to lose her. I don’t ever want to leave. This is the unspoken fear of every parent, although arguably more heightened for me, a special needs mom. Special needs parents feel a particular type of pressure to live forever. After all, who else will love our child with all their extra needs? Take them into their home? Go with less so they can have more? That’s a mother’s job.
I pulled her close, my little girl, who now seemed so much older with her pulse on this temporary world.
Then, I told her the truth.
“You’ll never lose me.”
It’s all I could muster. And on my very best, most faithfully optimistic days, it’s what I believe to be true. It’s God’s promise—and the mantra of a mother’s love:
Even when you lose me—we will always be together.
To More Love,
Stephanie
