PinF has always been surrounded by boys; four of them to be exact, and of course one man-- his father. The only personification of femininity was represented by PinF's wonderful mother. Girls didn't figure into PinF's path until about 8th grade I suppose. This has quite obviously changed for myself and my brothers with the birth of 8 daughters in the span of 21 years.
Observations of parenthood are often littered with one's own parental admonishments and memories as a child. This, like all facets of becoming an adult person are one of the many mysteries of becoming a complete person, one who not only can see, know, and understand their own path, but their parents' as well. To feel such complete love for a child explains and demystifies our own parents' many declarations of love, fear, and protection for us as the child we once were. First loves, old loves, or any other love you may worship or enjoy in youth can neither be compared nor replaced with the love we all feel for our own child. Still we tend to tell our children constantly of this love, understanding full well that they too will not know entirely of what we speak until the door of such wisdom might open one day for them too. Again, this is life's circular acknowledgement that we're all on the same ride, learning the same lessons, and experiencing the same feelings.
For my part I admit to my rather selfish and almost cavalier disregard for my parent's love for me until my time came to "open the door". July 9th, 1998 was the day that much of what I had lived, seen, and learned all came to make sense, it was also the day I experienced the true nature of love and completeness of the heart. Sophia means wisdom in Greek lore and language; rather fitting in many ways as her arrival was the herald of my personal wisdom. The wisdom I've gained over the past 13 years of being a parent is something that I could never have learned, felt or experienced no matter how many books I could've read. To truly understand the emotions of protection, responsibility, empathy, sharing, sacrifice and love one must truly feel the weight of his or her child's gaze back upon their face or the clutch of their little soft hand in their much larger and calloused one.
I admit that my Sophia's arrival on that auspiciously hot day 13 years ago ushered in an era of these and many other emotions and lessons--all of which I still continue to learn today. The most wonderful aspect of parenting is when you are no longer exclusively the teacher, but rather you too become the student as you learn from your own child how far to push, when to admonish, when to praise, and when to just shut up. Yes the love one will feel for a child is a love that cannot be experienced by any other means other than by truly living it.
I remember well speaking to another couple in a park when Sophia was about 4 months old. They were in their forties and their child was clearly Asian, and I assumed adopted. As it turned out they had just arrived home from a month in Beijing, China where they had been living in order to visit the orphanage every day in order to build the bond of trust and love with their soon to be adopted daughter. They related of how they had tried and failed invitro 3 times, but that their desire and love to be parents was so great that they turned to another option. As each of them spoke I could see their eyes becoming moist, and their emotions raw as they recounted the moment the 747's wheels left the ground in China. Their baby in tow with her new American passport, they told me of how their love was as great if not more than if they had given birth to their own child. In that moment as their beautiful little girl looked up at them, the father said he realized the gravity of his responsibility and love, as he and his wife then became the sole force of protection and love for such a little soul in this enormous world. They described the moment and just how emotional it was after having spent untold thousands of dollars and time in foreign country while their whole life back home had been placed on hold while traveling around the globe to become parents. ![]()
Powerful stuff. It too leant credence to the power of parental love--proving that it isn't really the act of physical birth that binds us to one another, but rather the spiritual bond that seems to take place--one in which parent and child forge as one.
And so it goes, my beautiful daughter enters the "teen" years, as beautiful and as glowing as when she entered the many other phases of her life. To her mother and me she is so much more to us than she will ever understand. But understand she will one day when if by God's will she too experiences the wonder of parenting. For now she is a burgeoning young lady of character, grace, infinite wisdom and happiness of which her mother and I give thanks to God and celebrate on this day--her day July 9th, 2011.
