Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” [Luke 1:45]

I scarcely know where to start to describe the joy of my children. Becoming a mother has been simultaneously the most treacherous walk on slippery rocks – and the most beautifully freeing expansion of my soul. There are not enough emotions to express how I feel about the changes these three humans have had on my very DNA. Overwhelmingly I land on joy, if pressed for an answer. I have loved every moment of their existence, even on the very darkest and hardest days.

There’s something about a daughter that I wasn’t expecting, though.

Her softness has exfoliated my edges. Her laughter has brightened the darkest recesses of my psyche – the places where doom and anxiety have too long held residence. Her tiny, gentle hands have healed my deep misogynistic wounds. Her peace has given me strength to stand against things that once buckled me.

I’m not one to lean on the virtues of others for the sake of propping up our weaknesses. And yet, here we are. I am better for her being in my realm. We all seem to be held more tightly by those small arms than we knew we needed before she arrived.

Mothers don’t have favorites (usually), and neither do I. Each of my children bring gifts to my life that are different from each other. Hers has been a strength that I never expected to find in myself. I waited for her for twenty years, and had given up on her arrival. I felt somewhat like Sarah. I knew there was a girl child waiting for me somewhere. I could sense her. Frankly, we all had thought she would arrive much closer in time nearer to when her brothers were born. But Zuzu and God had other plans.

Nearing my fourth decade, we welcomed her to our world. Her siblings were a senior, and two years finished with high school, when was born. Her mid-life crisis cusper parents were living the rockstar artsy-fartsy life just a year earlier. No one saw this plot twist.

What an amazing thing to get to live this life all over again, at this age, through the eyes of a child!

This is a gift I couldn’t have dreamed of for myself.

So ask me what it’s like to be a geriatric parent. I’ll tell you, it’s pretty rad. And tiring. But mostly amazing.