Someday I will be a parent.
It isn't that I wouldn't like
to avoid it. I would.
Loving something so completely
is a scary prospect.

My mother, regardless of how
we feel when we flew the
nest, built a world for me.
She never cried when they
stole our money.
When the insurance wouldn't
cover her surgery.
When the world got so
hard to live in, that there didn't
seem to be a point.

She wept when the teacher
told her I had talent.
She held me close to her,
rocking gently and smiled
as the tears rolled down her lips.
You were always worth fighting
for, my little one. My little
boy blue.

I saw her spend what little money
she had, from waiting tables,
from nursing, from a million
jobs she worked.
She spent it, not on the shoes
that her co-workers said she
had to buy, because her ankles
looked so sore, her knees
felt so weak.
She bought me sketchbooks.
Hundreds of sketchbooks.
Never a regret. She smiled.
She was proud of my talents.

How can you love someone
so deeply?
How do you watch as your
own idea of who you
are is ripped away?
I don't know that I have
that kind of courage.

I will be a parent, perhaps not
young like my parents were, but
a parent nonetheless.
It is inevitable. I know this.
I hope, regardless of how
I felt when I flew the nest,
that I can be the kind of
parent that never cries, except
to acknowledge how important
his child is.

I want her to know, when
my own child comes to visit,
that it has talent. That I
support it.
I want her to know that
I'm proud of her.