Three years ago I wrote a blog post called The Girl in the Rearview Mirror. I wrote it because I was watching my 7 year old daughter’s image change daily as I looked at her in the rearview mirror.
Three years have passed since that time and I’m still watching her reflection change. The one thought I have every time I see her face is, “she is absolutely the most beautiful girl in the world to me.”
My mother-in-law passed away last year and I recall that every time we would visit her, she would look at my husband (her son) and just say, “let me look at you.”
I get it now.
There is nothing more beautiful in the world to a mother than the faces of her children.
Nothing.
At this moment in time, I am lucky enough that I get to see her face in the rearview mirror every day. I get to watch her do her homework. I get to see her laugh with her friends in the backyard.
But these days won’t last forever.
One day, that beautiful face won’t be in my life every day.
I’ll miss her smiles, her late night questions, her messy room, and her hair bands on the coffee table.
I’ll miss our spontaneous trips to the ice cream shop, holding hands in the parking lot, and footprints on the back of my seat in the car.
I’ll miss hearing her voice every day and laying on the couch on a lazy Saturday reading books and watching TV.
But most of all, I’ll miss her face.
Because it truly is the most beautiful.
Photo by Ana Francisconi on Unsplash