I have been told that a mother’s love knows no bounds. If ever I doubted that (wondering how I would respond if this or that happened to one of my children), I can say now that I have acquired firsthand comprehension of that phrase, the threads of which are forever woven into my own heart.
I am the mother of a soldier son. In my life’s experience, there has been no greater challenge. When my son went first to Afghanistan, then to Iraq and other parts unknown on missions of classified status, I felt my heart would burst with terror and anxiety. And yet, my young daughter, still at home, needed my presence. It was incredibly difficult not to get lost in the horrible “what-ifs”.
I became a talk-radio addict, just to feel like I was keeping a finger on the pulse of the military initiative. I remember focusing on photos of my baby boy and his childhood pictures when he was so innocent and carefree, completely unmindful of his future challenges abroad. And then I would compare that countenance to the soldier face in his boot camp photo, so serious, so hardened, so aware of his duty ahead…….and I so helpless stateside.
I could not “help and fix things” as I always had been accustomed. In fact, my mantra as a single parent (“It’s my job as your mother to know where you are, who you are with and what you are doing”) was no longer valid and my own identity began to waver. I could not help and fix…..I could only pray for his safety. When the moon would rise, I would think of him in a faraway place….maybe he would see the moon and think of home……of Mom. I prayed that God would re-assign my guardian angel to do double duty in my son’s behalf.
So I existed in slow motion, weaving the memories with the worries, trying to be busy, trying to be present, all the while yearning to touch my son, to connect with him in ways only a mom knows, hoping for the best and dreading the possible worst, surrendering him to God’s care and taking him back. It was a limbo I never could have imagined for myself.
Even now when I see his smiling face, hear his laughter, I sense his scars, his battle fatigue, and his hyper-awareness of an evil lurking in our world that he had never before known. I admire him as a hero and a patriot, a sacrificial lamb, a man of deep courage, sensitive and strong and a precious son. And I thank God that he came home to me.
Melanie Wade Leslie
Artist | Printmaker | Board Member
