Have you ever had your life flash before your eyes, or rather your child’s life, flash before your eyes? Well, it happened to me over Spring Break and it really knocked the wind out of me. I was sitting on a beach in Anguilla when I saw this beautiful little family of three. The little girl couldn’t have been more than two maybe three, and she was walking alongside her mother while her dad splashed along the shore. As the mother got into her scenic backdrop, she let go of the little girl’s hand and the tiny tot desperately tried to get her mother’s hand and attention back.  Almost as if her mother’s hand was her air and she needed it to keep going.

Well, since my two children were happily playing with the other kids and wanted no part of me, I became very nostalgic and began to cry. I tried to snuff out the tears but they kept streaming down like a gentle waterfall. I got somewhat embarrassed and did not want anyone, especially my children, to see.  “Where had all the years gone?” I thought to myself,  “and when did they stop needing to hold my hand?”  Or for that matter, to do anything for them at all, other than drive them all over the place!  Let’s not get crazy, they still need me for that, but you know what I mean. It dawned on me how quickly things were changing and that I better get my shit together and back quick. This ‘mother’ thing has really taken over my life, and although motherhood is a lifetime commitment, the day to day can be fleeting. Are mothers who give up their job titles and defer their dreams for their children’s, on the wrong side of the struggle? I had a lot to think about that day on the beach. Maybe the journey of loving, and sometimes losing ourselves in our children, is also part of finding the love in ourselves. Or maybe there are different seasons for every stage of life and we should ride the waves as they come.