Fear is the Heart of Love

There's a song by Death Cab for Cutie called "I'll Follow You Into the Dark" that has a verse that goes: 

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me,
"Son, fear is the heart of love."
So I never went back

I never understood that line until I became a mother. Here's the thing, being a parent is tough work. There's little sleep involved, lots of time spent doing things for another person with no regard for yourself, your social life takes a real hit, etc. Yet, none of those things matter to you because you have this little human that is a part of you. It shares half of its genetic makeup with you - and that makes you feel so incredible. You look at your baby and something just happens - you forget how it is that you even lived without them, because you can't imagine a time in your life where you didn't love them with all of your heart. You nurture them while they're growing inside of you, then you go through excruciating amounts of pain to get them here, then you bathe, feed, change, and love them day in and day out. And then, one day, you're expected to let them go. One day you have to let them go to preschool, go on that 2nd grade field trip to the museum, take a three day tournament trip with their baseball team, see them go off to college, and watch them get married and start a family of their own. This process is cyclical; it begins with two people and ends with hundreds of branches off of the family tree. None of this is news to me, I understood the reality of this before I chose to become a mother. But do you know what I didn't expect, what no one talks about? That the realization that you have to let them go someday can paralyze you with fear. I look at my son and I know that I can't always be there to protect him from danger: physical, emotional, psychological, or otherwise. I can't be with him every minute of every day for the rest of his life. One day, I have to let go and see him face the world on his own. Fear is the heart of love... it's possible to love someone so deeply that you fear the inevitable reality of having to live without them. Even with the knowledge that the gospel gives, that families are eternal, I still have moments of fear amidst my feelings of love. And that is the reality of parenthood. At least, that's my reality.