The gift

It's 3:05 in the morning...the morning of the day my daughter will leave to spend the holidays in Italy with a dear friend who is serving in the Air Force. I've spent the last few days focusing on my own emotions but I think the emotions have gotten to her as well. She is in the shower as I write this, wanting to know my every move. Tonight we decorated cookies together, had coffee together, packed, and basically have been joined at the hip. A while back I posted about everyone in my family asking me what I wanted for Christmas and I never having an answer. Tonight I got both my question answered and my gift. As any Mom will tell you, a "job" perk is feeling needed. Its the same feeling you get when you take that newborn home from the hospital. The knowing that everything in that baby's life revolves around you. Then they grow up, as they should, and school, friends, life...it all takes them down their own path. You feel happy, sad, proud, anxious, excited, you feel everything with them, for them, sometimes because of them. Many times you feel useless as they get older. You stop feeling needed. I'm caught in that in between age where the kids are too big to really need me that much but not yet at a point in their lives where they have children of their own and need me all over again. Tonight my daughter and I see how much we need one another. Tonight we see that there is a bond that transcends miles, time, destiny. It's my Christmas gift to come to this realization. I wish this for all Moms everywhere.
Goodnight.