Unconditional LoveMy mother delivered me in twelve minutes. Mine was the seventh body to pass through her womb in ten years. She said I was born hungry and happy, a chubby, smiling little girl. I am surrounded by faces and touched by hands, cooed and kissed. I'm cradled in the tiny baby carrier my dad built so my mom could cook with me on the counter. In the afternoon, when my older brothers come home from school, they pass me around; everyone takes their turn with me, trying to make me giggle and smile. They force them. And in the evening, when I am taken out, a new wave of smiles and warmth peers at me as I lie in the stroller. I'm never alone. I am in my mother's arms in a dark room, in a rocking chair. My ear hurts and she rubs my back. I'm crying and she's singing. I fall asleep. My mother is doing the laundry; I crawl into the huge pile of ?white? dirty? and smell my father's Old Spice. I'm kicked out. I find my way into the big old house. I climb the steep, winding steps to my older brother's attic bedroom. There's only the smell of mothballs and I crawl down backwards. In the morning my mother runs to get the others ready for school. I'm alone in the bathroom, no more diapers for me. I want to be "grown up". I use half a roll of toilet paper. Can I hear my mother calling my name impatiently? he has to take the others to school. I emerge stinky but proud and my haggard mom smiles and laughs to herself as she cleans me. When I think about my journey, I think about this beginning. I think of the gifts of a child's life like this: love, freedom and trust. Do these gifts sustain a life? or should I say, my life? and balance the darkness and fears that inevitably emerge. A woman I buried...... middle of paper ...... tied to the playful and confident tomboy? Has everything changed? no football with the boys, no sleepovers at David's house. I decided I would go to school. I had learned the rules well enough to earn a scholarship to a boarding school ninety minutes from home. After a few months of being apart, I wrote to my mother about the shame I felt for my sin, how I felt like a terrible person for doing what I did and for making her cry. In response, he wrote: What you did was neither good nor bad. Does it just show that you are part of the human race, that you fight and strive? sometimes falling. The important thing is to learn from it and let it go. And with these simple words my mother passed on to me the life of a seeker. It freed me from guilt and allowed me to embrace the journey. What I learned then was the transformative power of unconditional love.