Last Friday, as I drove to my parents' house to pick up the boys, I flipped through a bunch of random mix CDs, trying to find some interesting music to keep my awake on the long stretches of I-90 that are without any real radio coverage (thank you, Berkshires!). As I drove along, a song came on that I have always loved, but a song that has never meant anything in particular to me, other thank liking it. As "To Make you Feel My Love" (the Garth Brooks version) played, I listened in silence, and by the time the song was over, I had tears streaming down my face.
I've always assumed the song was about love, and it is -- but as I listened that night, I was struck by how the song resonated with me as a mother's love for her child, as a mother's willingness and absolute commitment to comfort and protect her child, to shield the child from the cruelties of the world, to do everything in her power to make her child's dreams come true.
The line, "I've known it from the moment that we met, there's no doubt in my mind where you belong" was what really did it for me -- the most defining moments of my life were the moments when my two babies were placed in my arms -- and I knew in that second that my boys would forever belong in my arms. When I got to my parents' house, my mom wrapped her arms around me in a big hug, and I realized the song is true for her, too -- a big hug for her daughter to protect me from the outside world and a painful divorce.
1 comment:
This happens to me, at minimum, once a month... All of a sudden a love song I've always connected with has an entirely new and richer meaning, and I cry like a baby.
I feel like becoming a parent somehow added a "filter" to my brain that just wasn't there before. Now, all incoming sensory information passes through that new filter so I'm not just experiencing it myself, but also as a parent. There definitely isn't anything that becoming a parent doesn't change.
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