Those conversations were my gray area. Three-minute-long dialogues in the car or grocery checkout line. So much of parenting is found in these truncated discussions between cereal aisles and bedtime prayers.

I looked at the clock on the oven and once I said “go,” my ears filled with words and phrases that broke my heart.

Now, in a quiet house, I see unfolding time without the blur of the craziness of insistence. I look back un-harried and recognize the precious calling of those years.

I stepped forward to intervene, but then I saw him lean in close to his crying sister, and I stopped.

My words encouraging her to see herself as beautiful and unique fell short when I could hardly look in the mirror without finding a flaw in myself. She was watching.

This is motherhood in its simplest, most beautiful form. And it is something each of us can give, even in our most exhausted and depleted moments…