Having a child is like having a piece of your heart walking around.

It’s like having the most important part of you outside your body. They get hurt and you feel the pain twice as much, they get sick and you wish you could just take this sickness and suffer it yourself so they don’t have too.

My late mother used to tell me that when she was a new mom and my brother, her first born, was little she would cry everytime her little boy would scrape his knee. She would chuckle and tell me “parang loka loka” (like crazy).

I remember one time when I was in college and had the most insane episode of cramps my mother cried her eyeballs out. She kept saying “bunso ko, bunso ko” (my youngest, my baby), while crying. This struck me. It was something I didn’t understand at that time but it struck me. It was like she was feeling my pain, she felt it twice as much.

It was only when I became a mom that I started understanding why she reacted that way towards her children’s pain. I often find myself crying when my kids are running a fever. You literally feel your heart get crushed when they’re sick or in pain.

For a mother, the saddest most heartbreaking sight to behold is her child who is sick or in pain.

My first born had to spend days in the NICU, it was a very difficult first few days of motherhood.And when it was time to go home we happily bid the nurses good bye. But as I looked back to see all the parents whose children were still in the ICU some of which have been there for almost a month, I realized how painful this scene must’ve been for them.

That someone was going home, that someone’s child got better while theirs was still struggling with all the tubes attached. I saw the sadness in their eyes. Especially those with babies who’s been there for awhile.

I went back and held one mom’s had and told her I will see you and your baby outside soon. Her eyes glistened and she hugged me tight.

I have so much love and respect for moms taking care of kids who are battling terminal illness. Theirs is a heart battered and bruised from the pain of seeing their children that way, but each and everyday they wake up and carry on.

Which is what a mother’s love is about. You cry and get broken hearted when your kids are sick and in pain but you carry on. Your heart gets broken to pieces everyday as your child battle an illness but each morning you pick those pieces up, put them together, and care for your child once more.

A mother’s heart could get battered and bruised (from the stress and the pain of seeing her child sick) but it will still remain hopeful, it will still be filled with so much love. Which is what makes parenting so beautiful and powerful.