My little girl

Sometimes at night I sneak into A's room while she is sleeping and just look at her sweet, still frame. She is such a bundle of energy during the day that I just love to see her resting and calm in her sleep. My fingers ache to reach out and touch her soft skin but I don't with fear of waking and startling her. My eyes gaze at her silently and I feel the conflict of love but also fear...fear that she won't always be with me, that someday she will be hurt, or that she won't always love and need me the way she does now. And I wonder, has any mother ever loved a child as much as I love this one?

Emily Dickinson wrote that she measured every grief she met...and I write that I measure every mother I meet...with narrow probing eyes - I wonder if their love weighs like mine, or if it has an easier size?
I wonder if they bore it long -
or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine -
it feels so old a joy

I wonder if it hurts to love -
and if they have to try -
And whether - could they choose a Love -
it would not be like mine?

There's Love of Want, and Love of Need
And Love of Purest Air
Did the love that Mary felt
End with her despair?

And though I may not guess the kind -
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary

To note the fashions - of the Cross
And how they're mostly worn
Still fascinated to presume
That Some -loves - are like my Own

(adapted from Emily Dickinson's "I measure every Grief I meet")