Everyone defines love differently. We all assign love meaning based on our individual experiences and how love affects us. For me, motherhood was that defining moment. Motherhood didn’t teach me how to love; it redefined the meaning entirely. Love stopped being this soft, fragile feeling and became a real and fierce emotion. It was no longer optional–it was instinct. It felt as if becoming a mother fused with my DNA and equipped me with a sense of how to love and nurture a child the way only a mother could. From that moment on, love would teach me so much about life.
It was the first day in June of 2014, when I met the person that I didn’t know I loved with all of my heart. His name was Dominic and he was a tiny, six-pound thing with big eyes and a dimpled chin. My newfound love for him shook me to my core. It was so overwhelming it scared me. I had to adapt and learn to live with all of this newfound joy and fear motherhood brought along with it. Little did I know at that moment that love would come with tests.
Sometimes in life, we face obstacles that test the very makeup of who we are and the people we become when confronted with moments of adversity. Dominic, now three years old, was nonverbal and, after a series of evaluations, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
Motherhood again took on a new meaning, and what worked for parents of undiagnosed children was no longer going to work for me. I was afraid I was going to fail at providing him with the support and understanding he needed to overcome his challenges, but not trying wasn’t an option. We struggled. Without the ability to verbally communicate his needs, Dominic couldn’t tell me if he was hungry or tired; he couldn’t let me know if something was bothering him or if he was uncomfortable or in pain. It broke me to see his frustration manifest in anxiety and helplessness. I did everything in my power to facilitate the help and therapies he needed to develop the ability to communicate. The struggle was hard-fought and long.
Today, Dominic is 11 years old and is in the sixth grade. He reads novels, his favorite animal are elephants, he can recite every country and its capital, can name over 100 species of birds, and wants to become a zoologist when he graduates college. Because of motherhood, I have never been more empowered and confident in who I am as a person. My sense of love and its meaning have evolved past rom-coms and Valentine’s Day chocolates into a superpower of resilience and unconditional support for what makes my son happy. I hope everyone, at some point, gets to experience a love that changes them for the better.
