It comes right when you need it.  Grace.  Comes like a warm rain that leaks down my cheeks as I sit on the porch swing and read the card my mother snail-mailed me.



And I know this is private and only meant for me but it's kind of refreshing to know that I still need those words of affirmation from my mother.  It still means worlds to me to know I make her proud.  And it helps me to think that when I blink and my kids are grown and gone they'll still need me too.

This morning I crawled into the tiny toddler bed beside Noa and squeezed her against me.  She hugged my neck and in her sleepy sweetness said, "I dot ya, Mummy!"
"I got you too, Noa.  Never grow up, okay?"
"O-tay, Mummy.  I won't."
"Promise?"
"You funny!"

And she will grow up.  And she'll love me and she'll hate me and she'll call me to ask how to cook the chicken and I will always and forever be her mother and hopefully I'll be able to tell her how proud I am.  I'll send her a letter the old fashioned way and she'll cry on her own back porch amazed that someone could ever love her so much.