"We're not here to chase dollars. We're here to chase toddlers." My husband said this to me tonight after the kids were finally asleep. We were talking about life and why we're here on this earth. We've both come to the conclusion there is no greater purpose for us than being parents, than being a family.
We both were of a different opinion when we were younger. We were focused on building our lives but measuring our success monetarily. I remember telling Beau over some Blimp's sandwiches on the Texas State campus during college that I wasn't sure I ever wanted kids. We left the conversation at that for a few years. When we hit our late twenties, Beau was the one who brought up having children.
That's actually an interesting story. You see, I was in the hospital in St Thomas with a pretty epic kidney infection. It was covid times so I couldn't have anyone in the ER with me. My family happened to be visiting us at that time, and the only reason I was at the hospital was because I had a fever I couldn't hide from Beau, and after I had addimently denied him his request that I go to the hospital, he told my family how sick I was. I remember laying on my bed, shivering and honestly probably convulsing, and my mom came in and told me I was going to the hospital. I folded immediately and got up to go. I realize now that I'm a mother just how much a mom saying "you are going to the damn hospital" carries weight.
When I got to the hospital, I was admitted but not seen for eight hours. This is a very big reason we left St Thomas. When we decided to have kids, I wasn't willing to give birth in that hospital. I had a 104⁰ fever and I laid in a bed for almost a full business day without acknowledgement. Because no one but patients were allowed inside, I had no one with me to advocate for my care. If you've ever had someone you love or you yourself have been in the hospital, you know just how important an advocate is. It took a nurse going outside on a break, where my mother was sitting and waiting, and her asking for an update - to which the nurse finally realized I was in a room and hadn't been seen - for me to get seen.
All this aside, while I was in the hospital, my mom advised I ask the nurses to check and ensure I didn't have an ectopic pregnancy. I told Beau her suggestion, and my symptoms did align so it was a valid possibility. In the end, it wasn't my diagnosis, thankfully, but in that moment, my husband realized just how much he would've loved to hear I was pregnant, and we decided that day that we would start trying to expand our family.
It's a funny thing, thinking about our purpose on this earth. We'll never know it. We can have our assumptions, our beliefs and our faiths, but it'll likely never be confirmed. Faith is a symptom of being human, I guess. We don't require confirmation to know what we feel we know. Beau and I both feel continuing our families and helping to raise the next generation is why we are here. I didn't think that, at least not consciously, when I was younger, but I do feel it now.
We took RB to see my grandmother when he was nine months or so, and I remember struggling with idea of the trip. RB hates being in the car and we were coming off the tail end of our trip from Florida, so Beau and I both had had our fill of RB pitching a bitch in the car for a lifetime. We'd committed to going, and one thing you can be damn sure about Beau Harbison is he does not back out of a commitment. When he says he will do something, he will, come hell or high water. Before we left, while I dragged my feet and tried to back out, he said to me that being a great grandparent is one of the highest honors we can aim for in this life, and we owe it to RB to make the effort for him to meet one of his last living great grandparents. He wasn't wrong.
If you are a great grandparent, and you have a relationship with your great grandchild, whatever that looks like, that is the ultimate success in my opinion. It means you yourself have been successfully raised, you've raised your family, and your children have decided to have their own families that have since branched out. It means that something went horribly right because your family continues, in both the physical realm and in the emotional sense too. Procreation for the sake of procreation is one thing - but procreation for the intentional continuance of your family is another.
When I was younger, and even a bit now, professional success was the metric by which I measured myself. It's easy to fall into that habit. I take a lot of pride in my work, my intelligence, and my skills. After having children, the weight of it has shifted. It's still important to me, but not the most important. Tonight, and many other nights, my husband told me I am a super mom. I can't think of another compliment that has ever hit me like that one. He's complimented my work ethic before - he loves to tell people I am a corporate boss (his words, not mine). He always acknowledges that my brain problem solves differently than most (my favorite thing about my way of thinking). But when he tells me I'm a good mom - a great mom, actually, and that he couldn't do half of what I do (though I disagree - he's a fantastic dad), it makes my heart swell. I realize in those moments there's no job I care about more. There's nothing more important to me on this earth than my family, my place in it as a mother and wife. I'm very proud of what my husband and I have built. I'm very proud of the family we have and our children, who they are today and tomorrow when it comes. I'm proud of who Beau is as a man and a father. I'm proud of myself in who I am as a person and mother. That is all damn good to feel.
All this to say it's interesting to think you know your purpose here only to be confronted with it later in life. Ours may be different than yours, and that's fine. That's what this whole thing is though. As a very wise friend once told me, once you think you've got it figured out, everything changes.
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