How big is a mountain?

I have learned many things over the past few months...

...that it is possible to love so much that it hurts. I swear it physically hurts. But oh what a wonderful hurt. She takes my breath away. And when I see her with Dave, I wonder sometimes if I will ever be able to get my breath back.

...that there are few things in the world that are as thrilling as a toothless smile... unless you count the sound that accompanies it... not quite a laugh but so close that you can't mistake it for anything else.

...that just when you think that your heart is as full as it can possibly get... there is something more that fills it past the capacity that you thought it had... and that this happens over and over again.

Perhaps the most important lesson that I have learned over the last few months though, is just how much my parents love me.

I have never doubted that they love me. Never for a moment. In a world where every one has "issues" that need to be dealt with, it has become a fad to come from a "dysfunctional family." My family has many dysfunctions to be sure... but lack of love or doubt of love has NEVER been one. I suppose that makes myself and my brothers the lucky ones. In the absolute certainty of the unconditional love sent my way, though I never stopped to think about the magnitude of that love. It never occurred to me to think about it. And why would it? That love has always been there surrounding and enveloping me, keeping me safe and secure. I have never known a moment when that love wasn't there. I have never spent a second wondering if there would be hands there to catch me if I needed it.

When my daughter was born the first few hours I looked at her and all I could think was "Who are you?" It wasn't immediate like in the novels. It took me awhile. Then about 10 hours after she was born when she was first at my breast it hit me. I sat there with my child suckling me in my hospital room just the two of us crying my eyes out: This was what I had been waiting for. What I never expected was that the next day it got bigger, and the next day bigger still. Seeming to double every day, until sometimes it feels like it will explode out of me.

It took having her, though, to know the expanse of that love. Its like half-lives in the opposite direction. The exponential growth of what I feel for my daughter is something that must be experienced to understand. I am powerless to describe it, because there are not words for it. It is like describing the vastness of the ocean to a someone who has never seen it, or the enormity of the mountains to someone who has only ever seen the plains. When it all wells up inside and is ready to spill out onto the floor the simple words... "I love you" seem empty. I have always thought how absurd it is to use words when I am trying to express to tell my husband that he is my life, my all, the very core of my heart. And here now I am faced with the same problem with my daughter: What to say, when words could never do justice to what I feel. It is like trying to catch smoke in your fingers.

It struck me shortly after she was born, that I don't have the words to tell her how much I love her. I will always be tongue-tied when it comes to this subject. So I will fumble through hoping that I can show her the sheer volume of love I have for her. Hoping that she will be able to grasp it, knowing she won't, because I didn't. I have been cared for in every way by my parents. They have stood beside me through every single storm that I have had to weather. I know that they loved me, like I know that the sky is blue or that God is watching... I just know. But then I look at Ashlynn and feel the clunkiness of the words "I Love you", and it floors me: I have been loved that way. I still am loved that way. But it took having my own child to truly grasp the enormity of it. If the trend of exponential growth continues for much longer then there is one more thing I know; I am TOTALLY clueless.