If parenthood is a path that you choose, it will hold a mirror to your short-comings in the most striking of ways. If you become a parent to a child of the opposite sex, you will soon find out exactly where your transformation lies.

Will you become more sensitive and less fearful, or will you soon realize that it is those qualities which will only serve your process of loving another human being with every ounce of yourself; a person that will continually change and shift and leave one day.

This is where the transformation of learning how to really love begins.

I prayed for your birth from the time I was five years old. I imagined myself as a mother and pretended to care for you in every way possible. I fed you and clothed you. I pretended to watch you crawl. I ignored the sound of the motor in the doll that I wanted to be you and conjured true excitement at the sight of my baby crawling.

When you began to really come alive with personality (at around nine months old, you began to love me back), I prayed for your heart when I realized how soft it was.

When I became aware of your brilliance, I prayed for the strength to challenge you, and when I noticed the differences between you and your peers, I prayed for my own shadows as I knew that part of me wanted you to fit in.

I cried when they diagnosed you with ADHD and OCD, not because I was disappointed, but because I knew you would never fit a programmed system with standards which would never quite fit you – a system that could never comprehend your undeniable brilliance and beauty because it is a different shape from their model.

After a decade of watching this brilliance transcend everything, time stood still and only echoes could be heard as they told me that you have Asperger’s Syndrome. As I lay awake that night knowing you were chosen for me, I asked myself how I would ascend to be the parent you deserve? How would I be your voice until you could find your own?

How would I learn to face my own shadows and give stigma and judgment my middle finger, and how would I help you see your own gifts?

Will you ever know the countless hours that I’ve spent on the phone with doctors and therapists?

When it seemed as if I was lost in thought and not paying attention to your Lego battles, I was thinking of how to transform into a better version of myself for you. Your unique intelligence and soft heart occupied every breath I took in those moments when it may have felt I wasn’t paying attention.

I’ve been having a love affair with you my whole life.

Your complexities have held up a mirror and helped me expand. We’ve grown up together, you and I. You’ll never know the child I was before you burst into my life. You came into the world in a flash. It only took one hour and there you were – brilliant, calm, wise.

In a flash of light, you came into my life and continue to light my path each day. I’ve come to the realization, dear heart, that the question is not how will I ascend to meet your needs, but how will you ever know just what a gift you’ve been to me?

The mirror is you. @Colee3000 (Click to Tweet!)

You love perfectly. You see with higher vision. You don’t fit the model, and now, neither do I.

You’ll never know what’s really transpired between us.

That’s ok.

One day, while rising from the flames of your own process, you will soar like the phoenix you are and I will watch in all of my motherly glory knowing that it was always going to end up this way.

Thank you, my love.

Nicole Markardt is a public school teacher, writer, reiki practitioner and certified yoga instructor. She guides both children and adults through yoga practice. After breaking her back, doctors couldn’t be certain she would ever walk again. Igniting her desire to heal both the emotional and physical body, she went on to receive her 200 hr. Hot Yoga/ Ashtanga Vinyasa teaching certificate, along with a specialized 100 hr. Yoga Rocks!Kids certification. Her articles have appeared in MindBodyGreen, Elephant Journal, and Rebelle Society. She is the author of Peace, Love & Practice – a bi weekly column for DoYouYoga.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

Image courtesy of Heather Williams.