Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part III. MULTIPLYING

Chapter 23. One, Two, Three

When the doctor places your firstborn in your arms, you hold your breath. You bring him home understanding that the Universe has made a mistake, that someone more qualified and motherly will show up to retrieve him soon. To pass the terrifying time, you play house. You hold him with trembling, clutching, sweaty hands. You still do. Your love for him is colored by fear because you are afraid he will die any minute. You do not trust that he can navigate his world. You eye his doctors, his playmates, his teachers, even his grandparents with great suspicion. Will they be gentle enough with him? He is so sensitive.

What you really mean is: I am so sensitive. I’m like Lazarus, fresh from the tomb, eyes burning from the sun’s brightness. I can’t handle the ferocity and fragility of this new love. Please be careful with us.

You’re sure if you just hold his hand tight enough, read the right books, choose the healthiest foods, enroll him in the best schools, just hold your breath forever, he’ll be okay. You’re not sure what okay is anymore. Maybe okay means you’ll succeed at keeping him and the world apart forever. Maybe okay just means that you’ll both survive this love, this love so intense it threatens to consume you like a fire.

Holding your second child, you start to breathe again. You are elated and concerned. Your firstborn is replaced. You can’t look at or listen to both of your babies at the same time. So you look at your baby while talking about your firstborn. You say, hold on, honey, all day. Your guilt is relentless. How will you convince them that they are each the center of your universe? This new angel seems like a stranger at first, and then your firstborn does. Suddenly he is some sort of giant. You wonder when he’ll start pulling his weight already. You are worried you’ll never find your balance. What is the right division of time, love, attention, fear, and worry? For the first time, you become concerned with how the juggling act you’re attempting to perform appears to the world. Am I doing it right? Am I saying the right things? Am I buying the right diaper bag, house, car, invitations? Are they wearing the right clothes? Am I? Do I appear to be enjoying motherhood enough???

But then again, you have your moments, don’t you? When they smile at each other, when he retrieves her toy, touches her hair, tickles her feet. When you hear two giggles coming from the family room for the first time. When you and your partner look at the two of them on the floor and exchange a glance that means, Look at what we did. We’re doing it. We’re making a family.

Then the third arrives. And as you hold her for the first time, you notice that your hands are steady and you’re breathing easy. The all-consuming fire is gone. Love is just … love. You don’t feel threatened anymore by her or the world. Because all of a sudden you see in her teeny little face that she is the world. And you understand that you’re not her protector anyway; she has One of Those. You’re just her teacher. You’re just borrowing her for a little while. You decide not to spend so much of your precious time begging God to shield her from the world. Seems silly, all of a sudden. Because she, God, the world, they are all mixed up together inside that new skin.

Then, as you count her tiny fingers with yours, you check your heart and find no guilt there. Because you understand that you are about to present your older children with the greatest gift of their lives. Who else but a sibling travels with you from the start of life’s path to the bitter end? And you know, now, that if your first and second born spend the next few months relearning that They’re Not the Center of the Universe, well, good then. It’s an important thing to know, and it’s a lesson best learned early. So there’s another gift to them, courtesy of you, and this littlest one.

You understand that things will get tougher when she comes home. You will sweat and curse more at the grocery store. You will have less money to buy her the right things. You will look far less graceful at playdates. But you will care less. Because you have listened to and spoken to enough honest parents to understand that we’re all in this together. And that there is no prize for most composed. So you’ve decided to stop making parenthood harder by pretending it’s not hard.

You look down at her, your third, and you think, what’s so different about you? But before you finish asking the question, you know the answer. And your heart says to hers: Oh. You’re not different from the other two. I am. I’m learning how to love without so much fear. How to relax a bit, in this brutiful world. How to let go and trust. You are helping me breathe easier, you three. One at a time, and together.

Amma, you came to me and you said. It’s okay, Mama. We’re all going to be okay.

I didn’t know that before you told me, baby girl. I really didn’t know.