Warm, nurturing, loving. Heaven, really.

It seems so horrifically unnatural for parents,
and mothers especially,
to harm their babies.

A sick friend whose mother has been gone for some years mentioned
that she still missed her mother, and misses her even more since she’d been ill.
“I have wonderful and supportive friends and family,
but there’s nothing like having your mother.”

I, too, miss that haven.

My mother was my safe place, too.
The place I felt loved even when she was royally pissed at me.
A place of refuge in times of need.

{Well, ok, there was the time I got out of surgery and there she was,
being such a pain in the ass that out of my anesthetic fog, I mustered the energy
to beg a friend to take her home.
But she meant well. And loved me.}

Maybe we don’t ever outgrow our need for that safe place.

A place where we can be ourselves.

Where know we are loved. “Because of,” not “in spite of.”

Is there anything that feels as good as being held
by someone you know loves you totally and unconditionally
and always will?

{That’s a rhetorical question.}