Unconditional

I remember the first time we talked about

unconditional love.

We were outside,

just you and me,

you shy of five,

talking to another little girl

whose mother—my close friend—

had given her some distance,

enough time to cool down.

She told us

her parents didn’t really love her.

I told you both

that parents love their children—

not just a lot,

but unconditionally.

You looked at me

with your five-year-old eyes,

wide with wonder.

What is that?

Later, you would ask me,

Mom, would you love me

even if I killed an ant

or a spider?

As if that were

the worst thing

you could ever do.

Yes, of course, I said.

And I pictured you trying.

You, who cried

when someone accidentally

stepped on one.

Then you raised the stakes.

What if I murdered someone?

I thought of your tiny hands,

your round cheeks,

Purple glasses

the impossibility of you

being a murderer.

Yes, I thought.

Even then.

Now you are a teenager.

And everything is different.

The questions are harder.

The things you carry

are heavier.

There are days

when loving you

means loving you

through a door that is closed,

through words I wish I hadn’t heard,

through the distance

you are learning to make.

Maybe this is

what you were asking me

all those years ago.

Not whether I would love you

after an ant.

Not even after a murder.

But whether love could survive

the parts of you

you haven’t become yet.

If this is not

the real test

of unconditional love,

I don’t know what is.

I hope we have

a long, long time together—

long enough

for you to become

every version of yourself,

and long enough

for me to keep showing you

that my love

was never dependent

on who you would become.