Yesterday my son had surgery on his ear.  It was a relatively small procedure: the ear doctor removed the large cyst that had been infected for the past two weeks.  The surgery took less than an hour and they released us an hour after that.

It was a successful, simple, and minor operation.

But watching the medical staff wheel my child down the hall away from us into a cold, sterile operating room aged me a good ten years.

Mothers aren’t built to watch their babies suffer, they’re just not.  Mothers are also not physically designed to undergo long term sleep deprivation, lengthy exposure to loud, obnoxious whining, or the tedious and painful process of potty-training.

But we do all those things anyway.

Whatever magical and mystical thing that happens to your heart when you become a mother trumps everything known in biology, physiology, and psychology.

Love trumps all.