Oh my god, this is so beautiful. I love you for your honesty.

I have so much to say about this, but I'll save some for later. I will share a story, though. I remember in September, when my sister was packing up to move. Her husband was living 300 miles away in a hotel. I was at her house every afternoon to help, but that isn't much when you're totally alone with 6 kids, preparing for a move and dealing with the worst air pollution from wildfires that our region has ever seen in recent history. And oh yeah! The pandemic!

She was on edge a lot and screamed constantly. I remember one night, I was playing with the kids and I don't even remember what happened - they hadn't done a chore or had dropped clean laundry on the floor or something, and she came in and yelled at them, and told them to go to bed.

Ten minutes later, when she'd disappeared into her room to do another chore, I took little Alex upstairs into the boys' room and they were both lying in bed, crying in the dark. I turned on the light and had a really long talk with them about stress and parenthood and moving and how none of what had happened had been their fault and that their mother loved them so much - it was just more than she could handle. (They were 12 and 10 at the time, so they understood such a heavy topic.)

I asked them to come downstairs with me and sit on their mama's bed and watch a cartoon before I went home. So we all trudged downstairs and went into my sister's bedroom and she grabbed them all and hugged them so hard. She apologized and then started teasing them and tickling their feet and soon everyone was laughing.

Grownups have needs, too, and hard days, too, and when you're a parent, there's so little there to catch you. And so, I imagine, you just hang on by your fingernails.

Keep it up, because I know you are doing ten times better than you even think you are.

And like you said - you are perfect for them. I read once that the souls of children pick their parents before they incarnate and I always found comfort in that. They chose you. <3

Keep it up.