It happens unexpectedly, like everything else this boy does.

The oldest, the one who first stole my heart, sits on the side of my bed during our snuggle time. He is drawing some cartoons for the book we’re brainstorming, one we plan to write together.

He says it almost like an afterthought, like it isn’t a big deal, because he has no way of knowing just how big it is.

“I want to marry a woman like you when I grow up,” he says.

I laugh and touch his cheek, and he smiles wide into my eyes. “Really,” he says. “I’m not joking.”

I know he’s not, so I tell him so. And then, when the timer clangs and the baby starts fussing to be fed and he walks out, back to his room, I breathe deep and long, trying to keep the tears from dropping.

They do anyway.

Maybe it’s because the last few days he’s been walking around the house reminding us he only has eight more years before he’s driving and 10 more years before he graduates.

I’m just not ready for any of it.

I’m not ready for them to be grown. I’m not ready for them to be married. I’m not ready for them to be gone.

Sure, he’s only 8, but the day is speeding upon us, if the last eight years have anything at all to teach us.

One day he will be gone. One day they will all be gone. They will all be someone else’s.

This is all right and true and noble and sweet and beautiful. But there is a bittersweet piece to it.

They are all boys.

So I will lose them all.

///

When I was a senior in college, I came down with a severe case of the flu.

I had never before had the flu, in all my 21 years. My throat felt scaly and fire-filled, my cheeks turned red and I could not sleep my body hurt so badly.

My husband, who was just a fiancé at the time, stuck by my side, even at the risk of getting sick himself. He put a cold washcloth on my head to keep the fever down. He made me hot soup and fed me the two bites I could swallow. He took me to the emergency room when my fever got so high I almost passed out.

And then, when it just got too awful to bear, I finally croaked out, “Call my mom.”

Because there is just something about your mom knowing you’re sick that makes you feel just the littlest bit better. She doesn’t even have to drive the 123 miles to your college apartment or sit on the side of your bed or wait outside the room while you sleep.

She just has to know.

A few weeks later, my husband (fiancé) came down with a stomach virus and puked for days.

The only person he called was me.

His mother didn’t even know.

///

I ask my friends with grown boys all the time.

Does he call?
Does he visit?
Does he invite you to visit?
Do you know when he’s sick?
Do you know when he’s hurt?
Do you see him at all?

Most of their answers are the same.

Not often, they say.

I don’t know if it will be the same with my boys.

But I do know that the bond between a mother and a daughter in those growing up years grows right up with them. The daughters have children, and we begin to understand what our mothers sacrificed and how deeply she loved and just how hard it all was.

My boys will never know what it’s like to be a mother, only what it’s like to be a father.

They will never feel what I felt, that incredible awe at having grown this perfect little human being and how lovely it was to watch them nurse in the lamplight of my room and the way they whittled me into a better version of myself.

I used to think I was missing something, that this piece of mother had been withheld because I was not a good enough woman to raise a girl.

Now I know better.

Every child is a great gift, and whether or not we receive him as such doesn’t change the truth of that gift. They were all given so they could scrape us into the best versions of ourselves, and maybe they are boys and maybe they are girls, but they all scrape our hearts the same.

If my boys want to marry a woman like me someday, then I have to let them shape who I become.

///

When that first pregnancy test showed positive, and my husband and I could finally move again, my mother was the first person we called.

He was the first grandchild, so of course she was excited. She went to the second appointment with me and listened to his heartbeat. We recorded the first sonogram and gave her a copy. She called me every week, and I called her in between just to let her know how I was doing.

She was the one I wanted to stay with me after the baby came home so we could find our feet with this new little person. She was the one who comforted me when my milk never came in. She was the only one I trusted to keep him for the first overnight road trip his daddy and I took.

Having a baby just made our bond even stronger, and I ached to have a baby girl so I could one day share that with her, too. So I could tell her about the incredibly strong women whose line she shared.

Only it didn’t happen.

We welcomed boy after boy after boy, and the one girl who came slipped right through our hearts before we could meet her. And then came more boys.

Mother of a daughter is a title I would not carry.

///

This is our last baby.

I knew it was coming, and even though I felt disappointed at first that the baby I carried was a boy, I am so very glad that he is another boy.

But.

There is still a deep longing for the daughter I lost, for the bond I missed, for a lifelong friendship like the one I share with my mother.

People ask all the time, when they see or hear that we are the parents of six boys: “Did you want a girl?”

The answer is of course.

Of course I wanted a daughter. Of course I wanted to raise a girl to know where she stands in a world that was made for men. Of course I wanted to raise a girl to know she didn’t have to do anything at all to be proved worthy. Of course I wanted to raise a girl so she would know she was beautiful even in all the imperfect places.

It’s not the reason we had six children, but I did want to be the mother of a daughter.

A daughter shares something so very special with her mother, and I wanted this.

She shares the experience of watching her mother put food on the table, day after day, week after week, year after year, and knowing a little something about this overwhelming need to provide them with everything they need.

She shares the experience of seeing her mother sitting in the stands at all her basketball games, even the one where she sat the bench for too many aggressive fouls.

She shares the experience of accepting a “secret” engagement and understanding, later, that her mother knew all along, because a mother always knows.

I will never have a daughter to experience a first heartbreak with, and I will never have a daughter whose engagement I know about first, and I will never have a daughter bounce career ideas off me.

I will not be the one they call when they are sick. I will not be the one they open up to about the girl they think they might love. I will not be the first one to know they are getting married or having a baby or what gender the baby will be or what they’re doing for Christmas or how long he’s had the flu.

It’s okay to grieve this, because it is a hard knowing.

And it’s only in admitting what we want and how we didn’t quite get it exactly that we can clear our eyes enough to see that what we want and what we need are two very different things.

So I am a mother of only boys.

This is something wonderful, too.

///

One day my boys may marry a woman like me.

And I will be right there, cheering from the sidelines, next to their daddy, waiting for them to call me or visit me or share with me—or not.

Whatever that future holds doesn’t change the truth of now: I have been given a great gift, because I am a mother.

I don’t have to live in those future days now. I don’t have to pretend I know how they will end up. I don’t have to look at my boys now and see them all grown up, pulling away, because the truth is, I have no idea what grown up will look like.

I just know that right now they are my boys.

They are my boys right now.

One day they will be gone, but that isn’t today.

So today I will enjoy being the mama of these boys I love so much my heart is near exploding.

I will enjoy being the first one they run to when they’re hurt and the first one they tell when they have some exciting news and the only one they want to hold them when they’re sick.

Yes. This is something wonderful, too.