All the odds were against him.
To be a person.
To be my son.
He defied all the odds.
He always has.
His whole little life.
Even before he got here.
I can tell you all the horror stories.
I won’t.
Because they don’t matter. They never have.
I fought the good fight to get him here. I won. Of course I won. That’s how I work. That’s how I still work. I fight the fight.
He didn’t come screaming. He came calmly for the most part. With a head full of black hair. That turned red. That turned brown. That turned blond. With blue eyes that have morphed into a version of my own. But not quite.
He’s the person on this earth with a little bit of me in him. Or, if you ask those who know us both, they will tell you he has a little more than a little of me…..he a smaller male version of myself. We tap our feet to the same off beat.
But he’s his own person now.
With his own idiosyncrasies.
A teenager.
How the hell do I already have a teenager? I asked myself that over and over.
I cried over that this morning.
Because that’s what I do. I cry sometimes. Still. It’s not something that you grow out of as a mother. Ever. It comes with the territory. And you welcome that like a comforting blanket when you become a mother. Worry and fear cover you and you envelop yourself in it because you’re allowed to. You’re a mother. They are your child. You fight the fight. It’s how it works.
But today isn’t about me.
It’s a day to celebrate him.
My new teenager.
My new teenager with an amazing life ahead of him.
And I thank God every day that he beat the odds.
