In the Blink of an Eye

You grew up

in the blink of an eye —

as if time,

so careful with everything else,

could not bear to move slowly with you.

One moment,

you were placed into my arms —

a quiet miracle,

soft as breath,

fragile as dawn,

and yet you carried a gravity

that anchored my entire world.

Before you,

I did not know how love

could arrive so suddenly —

or demand so much

without ever asking.

The days were long then.

They stretched like unbroken horizons,

filled with questions

I did not know how to answer.

I moved through them half certain,

half afraid,

learning you in the language of instinct —

in the rhythm of your cries,

in the stillness between them.

You needed me

like the tide needs the moon —

completely,

without hesitation,

without doubt.

And in giving myself to you,

I disappeared

and became someone else entirely.

A mother —

not born in a moment,

but shaped

in the quiet repetition

of showing up,

again and again and again.

Then time —

so patient in the beginning —

betrayed me.

It folded in on itself without warning.

The long days collapsed into fleeting years,

and the years into something

I can no longer hold.

And you —

you rose from it all

like something inevitable.

Stronger than I had prayed for.

Braver than I had imagined.

Carrying your own light

into a world that no longer feels so large.

And slowly,

so gently it almost felt merciful —

you let go of me.

Not all at once,

not in a way that broke —

but in the quiet way

children become their own.

I used to believe

those early days would last forever.

Now I understand

they were never meant to stay —

they were passing through me,

refining me,

teaching me how to love

without possession.

Because motherhood

was never about holding on.

It was about becoming the place

you could begin.

And now, as you walk forward

into your own becoming,

I see it —

not in the way you need me,

but in the way you love,

the way you stand,

the way you carry yourself through the world.

Pieces of me —

woven so deeply into you

they no longer belong to me.

And that is the quiet truth

no one tells you:

we do not raise children to keep them.

We raise them to become

something greater than we ever were —

and to carry forward

the love we once held in our arms.

And somehow,

that is both the letting go

and the miracle.