Prayer

Several years ago, before E came along, my mother told me that while my siblings and I were small, she would pray every day just to live.  Just to be around long enough for us to be (mostly...) grown up.  And that every day beyond that would be icing on the cake.  And when I was young, I thought "wow, that's morbid" and understood her only from a very clinical perspective: of course my mother would want to live to see me grow up.  That's only natural, after all.

I have E now. And now I know how it feels to worry that I will die suddenly in a car accident or in a plane crash or of cancer, and leave my small son behind.  Granted, he'd be more than adequately cared for, more than adequately loved. But it wouldn't be by me.  And that's the fear that keeps me awake sometimes.  It's the constant, dragging fear that sends me shivering from a close call on an icy patch of road, or shuddering in horror from a story about a mother of five dying unexpectedly from some rare disease.

My life is lived, and it's been lived pretty darn heartily.  If I were all that I had to worry about, it wouldn't be so bad to die.

But there's one small boy, one person that I was meant to take of. And Someone obviously thought I was the best person for the job.

And so, like my mother before me, and like mothers for centuries, all I ask is that I live until He doesn't need me any more. And hopefully by that point, he won't need me any more.