Hand in the Darkness

Before y’all get all excited and think I’m talking about a spiritual hand in a figurative darkness…I’m not.

I’m talking about a real hand in the real darkness.

I have to start off by saying that I love being a single mother. I think I was made to be a single mother.

When my ex-husband and I were together, after we found out I was pregnant but before we got married, I had one of those deep down thoughts that I would end up being a single mother at some point.

A friend of mine said she thought the same thing.

I knew all along that I should have listened to my instincts and not told my ex that I was even pregnant, let alone get married to him.

But, I was wrong.

That’s not the point.

I love my little girl with all my heart and soul. Really, truly, painfully, joyfully love and adore my little girl. I don’t like to focus on how much I love her because if I do, I could never get anything done. It would make my whole body ache and my mind would be totally consumed with the thoughts of how much I love her.

We have such sweet tender moments together. We also have some fights, but, she’s 8. I’m taking it easy on her for now. I’m storing up for when she’s a teenager!

She says the sweetest things to me sometimes. One of the most reoccurring sweet nothings is her going on and on about my smell. She loves to sleep on my pillow and in my bed because of the lingering smell of me all over them. She likes to sleep in my t-shirts that I’ve recently worn. She loves to walk in the bathroom in the morning after I’ve gotten ready for the day because the bathroom smells like me (my perfume, you idiots, not potty residue!).

She does the sweetest things for me sometime. She’ll draw me some sweet little pictures or write me a story or poem. She’ll clean her room without asking or will fetch me a popcicle.

But, the sweetest thing she does when she’s sleeping in bed with me , that makes me cry in the dark, that makes my heart ache with the thought that my time with her is fleeting, that makes me wish I could start over again so I could enjoy it more…at some point during the night, she’ll reach out and gently, sweetly touch my face with her little hand, just to check to make sure that I’m still there.

Edit:

I had this all typed up and ready to go when I received a phone call from my mom around 11 yesterday morning.

Light of my life came home from school complaining of a stomach ache.

Like a good grandmother, my mom went to go pick her up. When she started asking her things about the ailment, it came out that my daughter was having some sort of anxiety attack. When my mom finally got down to the heart of the matter, it turns out that she had a strong feeling that she was never going to see me again. When she watched me drive away in my car this morning, after I dropped her off at the bus stop across the highway (it was raining, we usually walk over), she had this horrible feeling that she was never going to see me again and it caused her stomach to ache to the point where she came home from school.

When my mom called, I spoke to light of my life on the phone. She was crying pretty badly but when I talked to her, she started calming down. She’s fine now.

While I was on the phone with her, she asked me a curious question. She asked me if I had eaten lunch yet.

I hadn’t and explained as much. She seemed disappointed but said o.k. and we hung up.

I went to lunch like an hour later. When I opened my lunch box (yes, I take a lunch box), inside was a note from her that read:

I (heart) You! And she signed her name.

Between the phone call and this small note, it made me realize exactly HOW MUCH I loved being HER mother.

Later,