When my children ask who I love more (do you love me more? you love her more!), I tell them I love them both the same, but I am lying. I love them completely differently.
M I love with the intense passion of self-love. I surge with pride at her achievements, I feel her pain at my core, I want to shake her annoying habits right out of her. She created the mold of My Child, and I am dazzled by the so many ways in which she exceeds me. She is my comrade in arms and together we conquer the world, except when we are conquering each other.
E I love with the awe of otherness. She is an endless source of surprise and delight. Her love for me is as big as the Himalaya, making it easy to love her as much in return, even as I wonder what kind of changeling she really is. She is my baby and I could hold her in my arms forever, except that she is determined to discover the world on her own terms. Through her eyes, I see everything anew.
I love them both more.
2 comments:
What a lovely post.
I'm still learning how #2 (9 months) differs from #1 (4 years) -- still sometimes too surprised by the very presence of #2 to think hard about who he is. It's good to get a reminder.
My two sisters and I each have a framed letter that starts "I've always loved you best because...". My mom didn't write them but read them somewhere and recognized that eternal pull mothers feel when pressed to determine a favorite. I'm 37 and mine still hangs in my bedroom, in its original green frame.
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