Children are amazing creatures. They love with big hearts, hearts untouched by the misery of adulthood and still basking in the glory that is the blissful ignorance of what lies ahead.

I’ve only been a mother for a short while now. It’s not even been a year since I learned I would be. And already I have experienced and cherish my child’s superpower.

For all I know, it may only work on me, and possibly my husband. But I do know that her ability to make me smile, sometimes even through tears, is epic.

I was recently forced to come to a depressing conclusion. This conclusion broke my heart because it involved my relationship to someone I am very close too. As an adult, we have to come to the conclusion that things won’t always be fine and dandy between ourselves and those we love. We won’t always understand why. It is the why in my situation that I am still confused about, and I’m sure the other party isn’t likely to cave. Neither am I.

Despite my desire to “be done” with it and all it entails, my heart still breaks, I still find moments when the tears decide to come, regardless of where I am, who I’m talking to, or what I’m doing. I’m sure this will be the case until I move on, or the situation is resolved (I feel I’ll move on before there’s resolution).

But at the end of the day, no matter what’s gotten me down, the first and last person I think of is the one with all the power, the one with the superpower. My daughter.

Tonight when I got off work, almost thirty minutes late, I thought only of her. And I smiled. Even when we are apart, she can make me smile. I have been in tears, and she’s made me smile. In the first few weeks of her life, when she would not sleep, and I was so very tired, the tears came uncontrolled and of their own accord, as I held her. And then, hilariously, she farted. She passed an epic man sized burst of hot smelly air and then grinned. And I laughed. Through my tears, I laughed.

Her unintentional comedy, her sleep grins, and yes her manly flatulence, it all has a power over me that no other human being on this earth, past present or future may ever have again. Sure, I might have another child, and this possible future child may possess the same power, developed in the womb. But right now, the tiny sleeping human next to me can unknowingly change my very countenance.

It may be a very long time before I am over what’s happened. Its more likely that I may never be over it, not really. Do we ever really get over devastation? But until then, if then ever comes, I will hold my daughter close to me, kiss her cradle capped head, wrap my arms around her tiny form, and be greatly affected by her ability to change my mood.

It is truly a super power, for no other person has ever possessed such an ability. She is my ray of light on a darkened day, my sunshine. And she is my super hero.

-c