There are days when the weight of motherhood feels like more than one heart should have to hold. The quiet ache of what has been lost, the invisible labor of keeping everyone afloat, the tenderness of loving a child who has already known pain too early. On one of those days, I was sitting in that stillness—somewhere between strength and surrender—when my youngest opened the door. What happened next became a reminder of what love, at its most pure, really looks like.
While I was sitting with the weight of it all—
the war,
the walking away,
the words I could not say—
he opened the door.
My youngest.
Too young for the grief he carries,
yet already marked by it.
I see two sides of him always—
the fury born from pain he shouldn’t have known,
and the love he offers so freely,
because he has been loved that way, too.
He ran straight into my arms,
like his heart recognized mine was fraying.
No hesitation.
No questions first.
Just presence.
He asked,
“Why are you crying?”
And how do you explain
to a child who feels everything
that your tears are for all the invisible weight
you both carry—
for the unfairness,
for the strength that love demands?
So I gave him the softest truth I could:
“I had an emotional moment.”
And he held me—
tight, real,
like someone who knows how to comfort
because he has always been comforted.
Because I have cradled him
through every storm,
every fracture,
every too-big feeling.
And for a breath,
in that quiet meeting of hearts,
we were not just mother and son.
We were two souls,
learning—together—
that even in sorrow,
love finds a way to show up.
Well-Stirred Dedication:
Sometimes healing comes not in answers but in arms that reach back. This piece is for every parent who has ever been held by the very child they were once holding. Love really does come full circle.
Well-Stirred & Wondering 
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