While babies across the earth warmed in their mama’s insides, mine was a photograph on my fridge. She had fingernails and eyebrows and could open and close her eyes, already. She’d done so for years when her picture wasn’t on my fridge. I couldn’t feel her kick, but I studied that one photograph and saw the will that is often forged within the vulnerable who are fighting desperately to be invulnerable. She was still kicking.
My only parenting tactic back then was what I prayed in secret for her.
It was too late to pray for healthy baby, healthy delivery. I prayed for a one-day-healthy heart. I asked that she would be open to me, that she’d desire love — because sometimes when you don’t get it for long enough, it’s easier to just stop wanting it than it is to wait for it to come. I prayed … {continue reading over here –>}
