Lessons in Love

Listen To Your Mother is a performance of readings by local writers in cities around the nation in celebration of Mother's Day.  I auditioned last week for the Milwaukee incarnation of the show but unfortunately did not make the cut.  I've watched many clips from past years online and it looks like a remarkable experience to be a part of.  Maybe I will be lucky enough to be included next time.

For now I thought I would share my essay here.  Hope you like it!

UPDATE:  This essay was purchased by the site Rewire Me for publication on Mother's Day 2013 and is being reposted with permission. Check it out here!

This essay was also recorded for the show Lake Effect and aired on May 11, 2013.

LESSONS IN LOVE by Korinthia A. Klein

Before I had children I thought I knew love.  I certainly knew what it was to love my family--My parents and my brothers and grandparents, to love friends, and to love my husband.  But loving a child is different.  There is no choice in it.  I believe I would do anything for the people I care about, but I'm aware that it would be a choice.  With my children there is no choice.  They can have whatever of myself they need without question.  That is a love I did not know before I had my first daughter, Aden.

When we decided to have a second child we managed to get pregnant on the first attempt.  As we got closer to the birth of our daughter, Mona, I wondered if it was really possible to love this new baby as much as the first.  My love for Aden was so all-encompassing, how could anyone compete?  What would I have left to give?  But my ability to love expanded easily to include Mona.  That was an amazing thing to learn, that love could be so huge.

I was raised with two brothers and always pictured myself as a mother of three one day, so as Mona reached a point where she was up and around and causing trouble it seemed time to get pregnant again.  Getting pregnant had been easy so we didn’t think much of it.

It never occurred to me that I would have a problem staying pregnant.