"I miss you," she texted me (at eight years of age, she's already uncomfortably agile with gadgets).

"I love you, Mama," she told me from an inch away, her chubby arms clutching her blanket in the dark.

"I love you, Mama, you're the best," he told me after I held his hot tea with honey for twenty minutes for him to sip and help his cough.

I still think I screw this up 90% of the time. Through absence, through distraction, through busyness, through need for solitude which translates into impatience. But either they see it and love through imperfection, or they choose to see only the lovable.

The depth of these blessings I'm unable to fathom. I still spend most of my mental space on matters too minute, too insignificant, too impermanent. But every  now and then I'm washed over with sheer awe at the three of them being RIGHT THERE. RIGHT HERE. With us and with each other.

I'll keep trucking on, for the 10% of time I think I'm raising them right. Lord, help me.