Beautiful Child

Unconditional love. According to the dictionary, it means affection with no limits or conditions; complete love.

It is the most powerful love you will ever experience, and it holds an undying, unyielding presence over your heart. It was the kind of love I never knew existed until I had my son. Suddenly I was encompassed by this aching love, and I often wonder what would define my life if it hadn't been defined by him. I think that I'd have continued on my path of life, never knowing why I claimed a sense of incompleteness, that laughter would not come as easy and my youth would feel like it was in fast-forward rather than rewind.

My own childhood was cut prematurely by a force pressing too much responsibility onto me, at a time when I shouldn't have had to become an adult. At thirteen, I was missing out on all the things most kids get to do and it never stopped until I'd finally gotten to college and carried on my own life. But by then, it was too late and rewinding the past wasn't a possibility. But a child gives you a reason, an 'excuse' to go to playgrounds again, to lay out under the sky and pick out shapes in the clouds. You can see the world again through their eyes when you are crouched down low, watching beetles or kneeling on the sidewalk, trying to feed the squirrels. Because of what I went through, my son will have a better life, and I think that is the reason behind my own lost childhood...To give him a better chance at something I never had. I also think that he is helping me to make up for time I lost, by being a child himself and trying to show me what it's like to be 2 again. In many ways, this little person who can barely put together a sentence, saved my adult self and brought the child back to my heart.