A mother's love

There are some things I understand so much more now that I'm a mom, like the brilliance of drive-thrus. (Seriously, why aren't they everywhere? You think I want to take my sleeping kid out of the car in the rain to pick up that prescription?)

But I've also been dumbfounded by how mom-hood has ratcheted up every single human emotion I have.

When I watched the two-hour episode where Diane Sawyer interviewed kidnap victim Jaycee Duggard, I was blown away. How does a girl-then-woman suffer years of abuse from someone and have his children? How could you raise two little babies living in a tent in a backyard? How could you help those kids have a "normal" life? And how could you be a mother whose child is snatched on her way home from school?

I think about the Baby Jessica case years ago, when the little girl was taken from her adoptive parents after a court determined that she should live with her biological father. At the time, I thought it was heart-breaking. Today, the thought of someone taking Jackson away from me when he's two years old to go live with another family - forever - is incomprehensible. The picture of her being taken from her parents will always be burned in my mind. As a parent, how do you survive something like that?

And then there's the latest. The utter human tragedy happening now in Somalia. A few weeks ago, the cover story in my Wall Street Journal offered this photo. The caption said this little boy is two.

My immediate reaction? Toss the paper into the circular file. I could not - would not - be able to mentally make time for this. Way too difficult. Way too much to do. But when I was a millisecond away from dumping the paper into the trash, I froze. This is somebody's baby. His mother probably loves him as much as I love my little boy.

Can you imagine?

And so, I read about it. I look at the pictures. I try to imagine what those poor people are going through - what it must be like to leave one child to die in the hopes that the others will live. This picture has been haunting me for more than a month. I literally cannot forget it. But I can't do anything about it either.

That's the worst part about being a mom.

Kids bring amazing joy and happiness. Lots of things happen that you can control. But when they're sick or hurt or frustrated, there are times you can't do a thing. In the end, all you can do is love them and pray for them and hope that one day they'll know you did everything you could in your power to help them find their own way.