Confessions of a Daughterless Mother

Last night E and I were driving into town to pick As up from football, we stopped behind a school bus and watched a little boy hop down off the stairs, wait for his cue to cross the road, and then run with his backpack bouncing off his bottom (his bag was so big compared to his little legs!) across the street toward his driveway. His smile turned my head, and I saw his momma waiting, bent to his level, arms open wide, her smile just as big. My favorite part of the day has always been Come Home Time.  The late afternoon/early evening when all my ducks (E included) wandered back to the nest for the thin part of the day.  Right as the sun dip her toes into the last hours of work, my family would come home.  Meeting them at the end of the driveway after school was always the apex of that time, the anticipation of them coming home, hearing their stories, seeing their faces and hugging them was a reward for the silence and work of the day. Of course, it wasn't always grea...

I thought that doing this a second time my feelings would be muted, like a serene water color landscape instead of the crisp, clean lines of a realist painter capturing my freckles and the wrinkles you gave me around my eyes. I was wrong. Eighteen years. For eighteen years you have blessed my life and tho we struggle, no one, no one is more proud of you at your best and loves you more at your worst. In all my life, I have never met anyone like you. You were born to be different, push buttons, disregard rules and look at boundaries as suggestions, to live life on a frequency most people can't handle. Your compassion and loyalty are fierce, in your life you will become someones hero. In many ways you are already mine. Your love of adventure captures my imagination, it focuses my fear as well, but I am learning to turn a (kind of) blind eye. Your path is your own, and I admire that. Happy birthday, baby blue, 18 things I love about you. 1) Your passion, compassion, empathy a...