daughter

I am many things to many people, but one of the first things I was, and one of the most important things I am, is a daughter. My mom couldn't sleep tonight, so at midnight (EST) she rang me, just to say good-night, just to connect to her only daughter. She wanted to hear my voice. "Now I've spoken to my son and my daughter tonight," she said, her heart full and now ready for rest.

I've learned a lot about loving from my mother, and would describe my heart as a mother-heart. I love the children in my life fiercely. Though none of them are "mine", I welcome their claims on my heart, even though I know heartache comes with such claims. I don't expect to give birth at this stage in my life, so it will ever be a mystery-- I'll never know if the love I feel for "my" little ones is equivalent to the love I would have felt for my own biological offspring. I know a woman who resembles me in many ways, who declared after becoming a mother later in life that the love she felt for her daughter was the same that she felt for other children in her life. I take some comfort in that. The question remains, though: When I'm seventy and sleepless at midnight, whom shall I call?