A Mother's Love

Every night, I sit beside Camden's crib and shove my arm between the narrow opening of the crib rails so that Camden can hold on to my wrist as he falls asleep. I love this time. The dark room, completely void of noise except for the rain water that echoes from his sound machine. Camden is completely still, except for his one tiny hand that strokes my wrist over and over again.

This is my time to reflect, to think about the day's events or what I need to get done the following day. I make mental checklists, considering all of the homework I need to get done and the emails I need to return that have sat, unanswered, in my inbox for days. I plan a schedule for Camden and me the next day: will we go to storytime? Or should we just play outside and enjoy the arrival of spring weather? I grocery shop in my mind, too, and attempt to channel my inner Rachael Ray, dreaming up creative new dinner ideas (a task I always fail miserably at).

That's what I normally do while sitting next to Camden's crib. This past week, while feeling Camden's small hand gently stroke my wrist, I've thought about my mom. I thought about all of the nights during my childhood when she kept a vigil by my bedside if I had so much as a fever. I remembered the night she stayed up way past her bedtime (and mine) to help me complete a project I'd procrastinated on in true junior high fashion. And she did it without complaining. I thought about how excited I was when she accompanied my first grade class on a field trip, and how loved I felt every time I opened my lunch box to find a quick, hand-written note from her lying next to my sandwich. I remembered every time she took me prom dress shopping and how she'd expertly applied my makeup the night she knew that Matt was going to propose to me.

And I thought about more recent events, too. I remembered how she waited on me hand and foot after my laparoscopic surgery. She showed up at my house with dinner the night I was to give myself my first injection before my IUI. I thought about how she sat in the corner of my OB's exam room on countless occasions, smiling at the sound of Camden's heartbeat on the doppler. And, of course, I remembered how she stood opposite Matt, holding back one of my legs as we all welcomed Camden into the world that November day.

And oh, I couldn't help but think of the way Camden adores his Nan. The way he abandons whatever toy he happens to be playing with when she walks in the front door; how he runs to her as fast as his little legs will take him, arms outstretched, smiling ear to ear.

I thought about all of these things each night during the past week because my whole family was rocked by a health scare concerning my mom. Some of us put on brave faces, some of us fell apart (ahem, me!), and others tried to stay busy and distracted. But, still, it was in the back of all of our minds: Mom was going in for a series of tests last Thursday. And they were checking her for that scary, awful C-word. The results came in yesterday afternoon. No cancer. What appeared as a dark spot on her kidney in a CT scan was, in reality, an accessory spleen. As in, she has an extra spleen. Apparently some people do, and it means nothing. Most people never even know they have one. But there was no cancer. I think I really breathed for the first time in weeks after getting that phone call yesterday.

When I sat beside Camden's crib last night, I offered up a silent prayer of thanks. And then I thought of my mom again. I looked at Camden's blonde head, and watched as his back rose and fell in a steady rhythm, assuring me that he had drifted off to sleep. Still, I sat there, his hand firmly gripping my wrist, even in his sleep. My presence is a comfort to him, just as my mom's presence has been a comfort to me so many times in the past.

There's nothing quite like a mother's love.