21 August 2021 – No matter what I experience or how I feel, there is always one constant – I love my children so very much, and I can never let them know enough. Being a parent is the hardest job I can imagine. It is extremely rewarding and exceptionally difficult. The truest saying I have ever heard is: “You are only as happy as your unhappiest child.” We try to protect our children from all of the scary, awful things in the world, but we can’t. We can only provide them direction and love them. We must love our children with all we are.

Meg and Shel loved their dad so much that I worried that they might find it hard to put their hearts out there, but they show more love than ever. The girls and I have always been close, and after their dad died, our relationship became even stronger. Someone had the audacity to tell me that my children would never be able to have healthy intimate relationships because they are too close to me. I know that isn’t true because I have watched them love others. They are more capable of love and intimacy than I have ever been. They love so deeply.

When our children are young, we provide them everything they need. They depend on us for everything. We help them learn to walk, speak and read. We provide comfort when they fall, when they are sick and when their feelings are hurt. We clean up after them, make sure they do their homework and try to teach them responsibility. For most of their first eighteen years, we spend more time doing for them than for ourselves. Almost everything we do is for them, and despite some whining and complaining, we mostly don’t mind. Little by little, they start to do things for themselves, and they need us less and less. Eventually, they are ready to do it all on their own. They leave home for college or the military, a job or marriage, and we become a much smaller part of their life. They have more important relationships, and we sit on the sidelines. We can only hope that we have done enough that they can survive whatever life throws at them and that we have loved them in a way that they have love to give to others and so they know we are always there for them.

All we should and can do is love our children. Tell them every time you talk to them, show them in all you do. Never let them question it.