The meaning of 'relentless'

Seth and Bella made a surprise visit this evening. This week Bella's mother is on tour and Seth is a full-time parent on his own. "People talk about parenting being relentless," he laughs, "but you don't know what that means. You think you know. You think 'relentless' means something like a job or a project that never seems to end, but you get breaks from jobs and projects. You goof off, you take naps, you chill out, take a walk, drink a beer. But when it's a child who depends on you for everything in the world, 'relentless' takes on a whole new meaning. And when you love that child more than anything, the relentlessness of it hits you in ways you never imagined."

We laughed, and Bella laughed hearing us laugh, and we all went out for pizza and then for ice cream, so by the time I took this picture the sun had gone down, the street lights were coming on, and Bella's eyes were becoming heavy.

Bella isn't sleeping well because she misses her mom, so that means Seth isn't sleeping much. He fell asleep on the couch this afternoon and woke as Bella was trying to pry his eyes open with the eraser-end of one of his mechanical pencils. "I was coming to, like out of a fog, and I looked at my watch and realized, oh my god, that's forty-five minutes unaccounted for. What has she been doing? I went directly from sleep into a cold sweat. But I looked around, and everything was in its place, and she seemed OK."

I looked at him, remembering clearly when he was her age. I was exhausted beyond any telling of it and completely responsible for his fragile and precious life. Young father, beautiful young father.... It's a miracle any child survives.