Down the Rabbit Hole

Ever to Nurture & Protect

Missed the chance to write Sunday's prompt on Sunday so I am playing catch up this morning...

30 Day Blogging Challenge
PROMPT May 12th
Write your entry inspired by the word “nurture.” What does it mean to nurture something or someone? How were you nurtured growing up, how are you currently nurtured, and how do you nurture others?

This entry feels like a loaded one coming on Mother's Day. This year, this particular day has been more difficult for some reason. For the first time I am reluctant to write about a topic that I fear will release too much anger and toxins into my day and I feel as if I have been struggling to keep such things inside to hard.

Nurturing is most certainly one of the most important things we mother's do. To nurture a child goes beyond loving them, beyond teaching them the basic tools and life skills they need to survive. We can not nurture without love for it is the ultimate expression of love. To nurture a child, we flame their passions, we invoke their kindness, we give them hope and light and promise. We build them a foundation to have a good life, to love and care for themselves. We teach them to know their worth and have faith in their abilities. Nurturing our children is a lifetime commitment and gets exceedingly harder as they grow and mature, as they come into more and more contact with outside forces. Sometime, now matter how well we have nurtured them or how strong we help them build their foundation, they will meet someone who crushes it. We have to step in and re-teach, replenish their reserves and rebuild their hope and self-respect. The act of nurturing is forever, and it is a labor of love. It also does not come naturally to some mothers and it isn't until we become mothers ourselves that we realize the wonderful importance of this love, this responsibility.

I have bad parenting days. I have many parenting fails. I have sometimes let my daughter down, made mistakes or bad calls. However, my daughter knows she is cherished. She knows she is my moon and my sun. She knows that she can do anything and I will love and nurture her until the end of my days and even then I will not leave her. I worried I would not be able to do these things for her once. It made me fear the day she would leave the safety and security of my womb where it was so easy to care for her as she was so entirely dependent on my own biology. The very moment she was placed in my arms though, I knew it was going to be the most effortless thing in the world to love her. I knew that as I had lived to bring her into the world, I would readily die to protect her. I knew living to love and nurture her would be the greatest gift I could have asked for.