I was navigating cnn.com when this picture (here) jumped through the screen and hit me. A mother, Captain Jennifer Moore, coming home from duty sees her six month old baby, Gabriella, for the first time since October. Both parents were on active duty so care was left to the grandfather, also pictured, holding the baby and overcome with emotion.This photograph immediately sent me back, almost a decade, to those first days I was faced with ending the bliss of maternity leave to go back to work. I had to do it three heartbreaking times - but it's the second one that left the biggest scar. At that point my girls were babies - one six months and the other 18 months old, the eldest young enough to very much need me and old enough to know it.
Maternity leave had been an incredibly fulfilling time. The joy I felt doing something I loved for someone I cared for - well, I don't have words to describe it. But reality arrived (so fast!) and it was time to go back to work.
That first day, as I was pouring coffee into my travel mug, my toddler sensed something was amiss. She began walking circles around me chanting "Mommy up. Mommy up." - and I did pick her up - maybe a dozen times but certainly not enough. I finally grabbed my computer bag and said good-bye. It was a tiny little word that started a flood of big hot tears. I gave her another hug from which she would not let go; I gently pried her fingers, one at a time, away from my neck and, again said good-bye. I shut the door firmly so as not to go back in but her screaming following me all the way to the car. I did my very best not to look back. I backed out of the driveway, straightened the car, waited, and when I couldn't stand it anymore, looked up. There, through a fogged up window was the face of my inconsolable child, tears streaming down her flushed little cheeks, her sobs trading space with desperate cries of my true identity "Mommy! Mommy! Come back! Mommy!".
This scene would repeat itself many times before my daughter finally settled into the routine of my absence - although I don't believe she ever really got used to it. She worries about me so much. Even today (she is ten) when I leave for business trips, she is incensed at my departure. A bad mood forms an invisible wall around her the night before and I don't get a goodnight kiss. The next day she cries at the airport as I check in, she hugs me without letting go - and I still have to pry those fingers slowly, one-by-one, from my neck. And every time that happens, I go back to that first crushing day - and I want to cry.
When I come home, she is the first to the door, the first with a hug and I hug her too. I kiss her, I lift her up and this time, I'm the one who doesn't let go. She tells me the hundred things I need to know about the last three days and then when we're all tucked into bed, she sneaks into my room and lays down beside me, nestling her head in my neck for the rest of the night - and all feels right again. Due to my travel schedule, I am lucky (or unlucky? - you decide) to repeat this production many times a year.
And so - the picture of Captain Jennifer Moore and the reunion with her baby girl stays with me. It's so arresting a display of love and joy and a little bit of heartbreak. I can relate. It's the hardest thing for a mother leave her child and the greatest joy to see her again. If I know anything, I know that - and so, it appears, does Captain Jennifer Moore.
