Soft hands, open grip

I'm guessing my son's birth weight… counting the days, learning to wait. I didn't think it would happen this soon— but here I am… writing to you.

You'll be mine in the blink of an eye, and then one day… you'll say goodbye. You'll find someone who becomes your world, and I'll remember— you were once my whole world.

I'm doing it again— this quiet ache, this slow unraveling. The kind of love that breaks you soft… we call it raising a child.

Because no matter how much love we give, how deep it runs, how far, how wild— we're not just holding on to them. We're raising them to leave us behind.

But until then… I'll love you like there's no tomorrow, like I could borrow just a little more time.

Like you won't grow up, like you won't one day leave, like your life won't slowly stop needing me. I'll miss you before you're even gone.

Maybe love looks like this— soft hands, open grip. Holding you close while teaching you how to slip into a life that isn't mine to control, but still… somehow carries my soul.

God gave my life meaning, but being your mother showed me what His love looks like.

So if I leave you anything, let it be this: every quiet prayer, every moment I couldn't fix— every piece of love I tried to give you like His.

Because one day I won't ask you to stay. I'll encourage you to walk away. Not because I don't need you— but because I love you enough to let you go anyway.

And if the world ever feels too heavy, if it takes more than it gave— just remember…

there's always a place for you in my heart, exactly the same as the day you first came.

Author's note:

wrote this while I was still pregnant, guessing his weight, counting the days. What I didn't know then was that I was also writing about every mother who has ever held something precious and felt it slipping forward — not away, but forward. Into a life you prayed for them to have. Motherhood has a particular kind of grief no one warns you about. It doesn't mean something went wrong. It means you loved them right.