Buffer

I've never done a girl drop off before. I can report that there are a lot more pillows and opinions involved.

True to our lifelong rhythm, we pushed each other buttons and bickered up until the final minute. At which time, we hugged and quickly turned our faces. Quite frankly it is embarrassing how much I love her.

I rushed to my car. She made her way back to the dorm room full of pillows and fears and dreams and the sweetest roommate.

Her first mama and her "why" sit in a frame next to the dorm bed. This girl is altogether too much beauty from ashes.

I heard a 55-year-old woman say that losing her own mother was like losing her "buffer" in the world. Even at 55, that is a loss. A huge vulnerability.

It is what we do for our kids. Just buffer the world. Stand in protection and in training and in relentless love between them and a harsh world.

"If you ever feel like you're not enough, I'm gonna break all your mirrors. I wanna be there when the darkness closes in to make the truth a little clearer."

Banks of their rivers.

Buffers.

I loved being one of her Moms. One of her buffers.

It was not hard.

I will continue to do it, as her first Mom did, until my dying breath.

The honor of my lifetime.