Heart Ache

I think we all have something that makes our hearts ache. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. 

I know for some of my dearest family that it's to simply carry a child to term, or to get to BE a mother to any child at all. 

For me, it's a daughter. I have dreamed of her for more than half my life now. I can picture her so clearly with her blonde curls and big blue eyes. Eyes like my husband's, while I secretly hope they turn green like mine did. 

I would make her little dresses, and dollies. We would have tea parties all the time. I would teach her to sew and cook. Some day she would pick one of the many China sets in my possession as her own. 

But I was blessed with 5 sons. And of the 4 I get to raise, one hates my stuffies. They all love to watch me and "help" me cook. My oldest hates sewing, which hurts my heart a little more. There will be no dresses, though my 3 year old calls his stuffies his "dollies" so close enough, right? And as I have 4 sets of China, I'm assured that means one for each daughter in law.

But that's just not the same. When I see little dresses, or pictures of sweet baby girls in their lace tiaras, my heart HURTS. There is always a full ache, like am old wound long healed. But some days it rips open anew and I have left bleeding. And guilty. 

How can I be so selfish? I have 4 beautiful sons I get to raise and love, while one was called home, I got to keep 4. How dare I put voice to this pain I feel, when I have 4 children and others have none? Or speak of how we cannot RISK having more because of how ill I become, when others have only managed a single child, if any at all. 

I often feel as though I don't deserve the ones I have, so I have no right to wish for another.

We all have the wounds that make our hearts ache. This is just one of mine.