For My Boys...

For my boys, Joshua and Micah

"I HEAR FOREVER"

Lying here my heart aches as I watch my children sleep, tucked away in bed snuggled close to my side. I long only for their happiness and yet I know that eventually the thunder of uncertainty will cause them great pain in the years to come. All too soon they will be asked to brave the storms of life and mend from misfortunes they themselves have no control over as they grow older. As a mother, I can only pray that I have lived as an example of hope and strength. That as they grow older, my boys will embrace all life has to give them, the good mingled with the bad, the unforeseen pain and all the simple joys life will bring their way.

Right here in this moment looking upon their little faces, with their tiny noses and locks of curls spiraling uncontrollable on top of their heads I pray they will come to understand that there are no true regrets in life. Even in life's failures and disappointments life will always give something back in return, some small gift making everyday worth the struggle.

This is the prayer I send to my children: That they would gain the joy of living life in spite of it's heartaches and find that life is truly found in how we face our heartaches that defines who we are and how we perceive ourselves.

As I rise and greet the sun every waking morning I see life all around me and I reach for the hope that life offers me in my mortality. I close my eyes and see the men they will be someday. I open my eyes again and I see my boys as tall as they have grown and with all their might still so small in this moment. There are no words, no embrace soft enough to ease this pain, yet the world, and all it's opportunities are still before them endless with possibilities. When my passing comes, tomorrow or sixty years from now, I pray only this, that in my children, my precious, silly, and brave boys, the world will find a piece of me. A legacy of who I am, a portrait of who they are, a continuation of life itself. In their smiles, I see today. In their eyes, I see tomorrow. In their laughter, I hear forever.

Christia Olachia