“Making the decision to have a child–it’s momentus. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
-Elizabeth Stone, as quoted in Mom in the Mirror

I felt pretty brave yesterday, starting off on a road trip by myself with three little ones in tow. But it wasn’t very long before I found myself anxious for that halfway point when we’d pick up my aunt. She was to be the extra pair of hands, and ended up being the driver the rest of the way.

“The kids were good,” she said when we dropped her off, finally at our destination.

“That’s from a grandma’s perspective,” I laughed.

The longer I’m a mother, the more I realize how much bravery is required in the raising of little ones.

Bravery in giving birth. Bravery in letting them sleep without watching every breath. Bravery in leaving them for the first time. Bravery in raising them to choose between right and wrong.

But by the time you’re a grandma, you have the perspective of experience. You have learned that caring for children is not about perfection but about love. And you know that sometimes, “tickle bugs” fix everything.

Mothers may by necessity be the brave ones. But the grandmas, they are the heroines. They are the ones who show us mothers that it can be done.

“The mothers are the brave ones. They’re the heroines.”
-Trixie in “Call the Midwife”

{Five-Minute Friday Prompt: “Brave”}