Sandy Jorgenson

When a bereaved mother is left alone, how deep into the recesses of her mind does she wander? Does she surface for air? Does she want to come out at all?

Sitting now on the cusp of my 35th birthday, I find myself taking stock of my life thus far, shoving my youth under a microscope while I ask myself this one thing: Am I careening full-tilt toward my final days on this earth, or am I only just getting started here?

You’d have a hell of a time if you ever dared to crawl through the recesses of a first-time mother’s brain.

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Two years ago, I had a two-year-old daughter who’d never met her grandfather.

The night I discovered that tumor on her back was essentially just like any other.

When I check on our daughter before heading to bed myself, I have to do a quick scan around her full-size bed just to locate her. She is almost never remotely close to where she started out. But she is almost always upside down, head jammed up against the wall or her footboard, stuffed animals scattered like confetti all around her.

Childbirth isn’t kidding around. Here are eight special gifts that your blessed body bestows upon you to say thanks for turning it into a baby-making machine.

But what can be said for the day upon which I am no longer enough? I dread that day.

Death, we know because it’s drilled into us from an early age, is a natural part of life.