What did I know of love before the six of you came into being? Sure, I had your daddy, and that was a love deep and wide and long, but it was a love that did not open fully until there was another kind, this tiny little human being kind of love. We were suddenly united in a shared purpose that was far bigger than the two of us, this raising up of a child. And there was an unexpected development to this kind of love: the six of you began asking for stories, and so we began to tell the stories of our youth, some of them stories we’d never heard of each other, because when you know and love someone, you think you know everything about them, though we had never known each other as kids.
So, yes, it was love that brought your daddy and me together, but it was not the same kind of love that now stretches between the two of us. We are more joined than we ever were before. We are more enduring, more resilient, more pliable at the same time. We have been through the hard places every couple wades through, and we have fought through winds and blinding rain and choking seas to come out on the other side holding hands and matching step, because we were fighting for a deeper purpose. We were fighting for all of you.
We know how important it is for you to have a real and lasting example of the work it takes to love.
So many days your love goes unnoticed. It’s not always easy to see. But as I thought about each of you, as I thought of your looks and your smiles and your words, I could see it so clearly, always hiding underneath.
You show your love by bursting into our room when it’s already time for bed, and you just want to give one more kiss. And even though I don’t like having my reading time interrupted, you’re there beside me, sticking out your lips, and how could I not love this interrupting when you’re 9 years old and you’re still bursting into my room to give me a quick kiss? It won’t happen forever, because one day you will be 19, and it’s this that makes me feel the love full and shifting and overflowing in a heart that seems like, most days, it’s on its last beat, because it is not easy, ever, raising six boys to love each other and Jesus and all people, and it’s especially not easy raising a strong-willed one like you who knows exactly what he wants and won’t stop until he gets it.
You show your love by not even noticing the way you move across the library to sit on the arm of my chair while I’m reading The Never-Ending Story, and you’ll put your head on my head, reading over my shoulder, and I’ll put my hand on your back, because you like your back scratched, and even though there’s a timer on this moment, what I really want is for it to last forever, for it to be frozen in time so that I can go back to it when you’re 16 instead of just 6. This moment won’t last forever, of course, and maybe this is what makes it so sweet. Maybe this is what ushers in the overwhelming love that lingers long after the timer has clanged, telling us it’s time to move on to silent reading and that we’re almost done with this night, even though it will be a while before we get you all put back to bed.
You show your love by coming to sit on my lap while I’m telling a story from my childhood, your favorite one, about your aunt and the dark hallway and the way she stumbled over boxes all the way back to the kitchen during a summer storm when all the cousins were sleeping over. You unconsciously play with my hair while I talk. You always like my hair best of all, and you will brush it against your cheek and over your lips and across your nose, because this is your safe place, this place that smells like the very essence of me, even though my hair hasn’t been washed in a couple of days. And I know that this moment is coming to an end, too fast, because you are only 5, and one day you will be 15, and you won’t want to sit on a mama’s lap. So I sit here as long as I can, drawing out that story the best way I know how, and when you laugh at the predictable part, I feel the love welling up and nearly out my eyes, but I blink the wet away, because I don’t want to explain, yet again, about this emotion that always leaks out my eyes. Happy and sad, all at the same time.
You show your love by coming to give me a kiss at the most inconvenient times, like when I’m doing my ab exercises and I’m huffing and puffing because it really hurts and it’s really hard, and you’ll bend over the baby gate and kiss me on the way up, and even though I’m distracted, even though I just want to get through this moment where my abs are on fire and my breath is nearly gone, I remember that this will not happen forever, either, this kissing in the inconvenient spaces, because one day you’ll be 13 instead of 3, and it won’t be so cool to kiss your mom for no reason at all.
You show your love by sneaking up beside me in the not-paying-attention moments and staring at me for a minute, at what I’m doing, at the things I’m writing, even though you’re a year from reading right now, and you’ll ask your billion questions and be genuinely interested in what I’m doing, and even though I feel irritated, because I just need to finish this one thing right now, I know that you will not always ask your questions, that I am not just on a work deadline but I am on a growing-up deadline, because one day you will be 13 instead of 3, and asking your mom questions about her work won’t be so interesting.
You show your love by the smile that could light a whole room when I walk into it and it’s been a few minutes since you last saw me, and you reach for me, always, and you lay your head on my shoulder, not because you’re tired, but because you’re overwhelmed, like I’m overwhelmed, by the love that spurts out your eyes when you’re so relieved to see the face you love, and you will only stay here, nestled in the curve of my neck, for a moment, because it takes only a moment to be fine again, to be ready to face the rest of your day, ready to look around at all your brothers and join their rough play, and I grieve, because I know that this will not last forever, this picking you up and holding you and carrying you to the places that I think might interest you, because one day you will be 11 instead of 1, and I won’t even be able to carry you, and you probably won’t want to see the places I show you, anyway.
There are so many moments I wish would last forever (though there are also moments I’m glad don’t last forever), and it is the knowing that they will not that has reached down into my love, stretched it and folded it around the six of you. You have brought me to the end of myself, and you have jerked me across the line, so that I stand, before you today, a new person who knows a greater meaning of love, the kind of love that says you first and you best and you always. The kind of love that says a day is worth far more than any year. The kind of love that says a moment might, just might, last forever in the folds of a heart.
That’s where I put all these treasures—in the folds of my heart. We live. We grow older. You grow bigger, truer. I memorize the lines of your face, the curves of your ears, the upward tilt of your noses, the color of your eyes, nearly black, green-blue, all the way black, and blue the color of a deep sea. I hug where I can, kiss where I might, attend where I can manage, and what your faces say to me is that I am worthy of love, that I am loved in the same way I love, or maybe just a little smaller depth, since maybe we don’t really know much of this parental love until we have children of our own, because when we’re a kid we know love as safety and warmth and yellow-colored memories, but when we’re older we know that it’s still safety and warmth and yellow-colored memories, but it’s also transformation and identity and hope and breath and knowledge and life.
You have shown me what it means to love. Thank you, my loves. May you, in return, know the deepest of all loves.
