“How did you know, Mom?”

My mother paused in the act of shredding lettuce for salad. “How did I know what?”
“How did you know Dad was the one?”

A little smile played on her lips as she returned to her work. I stood waiting, the potato peeler motionless in my hand. “Well,” she said, “we shared a faith, and I knew that I wanted to have his children.”

My insides revolted. What an old-fashioned thing to say, a totally unhelpful piece of advice. I was hardly a bra-burner, but there was no way I was going to define myself by my future husband’s children!

So said my brain. But in that space between my chest and my throat, her words stuck like a little thorn of cold dread. Because neither of her qualifications mirrored my feelings about the guy I wanted to marry.

He was dismissive of religion; he viewed it as superstition, contrary to reason.  He hated kids. And frankly, so did I.

I worked in the shoe department at Sears, you must understand, and when moms came in with their snot-nosed, whiny, screaming kids, I felt instant revulsion. Those tiny, inflexible shoes were impossible to get on tiny, inflexible, and writhing feet. I looked at parents and thought, please hurry up and make a decision, and GET OUT OF MY SHOE DEPARTMENT. When a stroller rolled by, I begged silently, Please don’t stop, please don’t stop!

It was weird, too, because I’d always been an in-demand babysitter. Though frankly, there were a lot of babysitting gigs I dreaded, too.

My mom smiled at that. “You were great with kids,” she said. “It’ll come back to you.”

Yeah, well. I didn’t want it to.

A few weeks after this uncomfortable conversation, my boyfriend presented me with a solitaire, and I burst into tears. Of terror.

But I loved him. And love doesn’t run away. Right?

God alone knows what would have happened if my fiancé hadn’t broken it off, eight months later. Less than a week later, he came back, asking for a fresh start. But the shock of the breakup had jarred awake something inside me. I realized that I wasn’t tied to him forever. I wasn’t married; I was not obligated by eternal vows to stick with someone with whom—let’s be honest—I had virtually nothing in common.

A clean break. Painful, but liberating, too.

I drifted through a few months, working, going to school. I recommitted to a faith I had been slowly distancing myself from. When the fall semester opened, I joined the choir at the Newman Center, and there he was: a cute player with black hair and a great laugh. We went out on our first date. The next day I went to Sears and stationed myself in the shoe section…and participated in something miraculous.

Every child who came in…was…ADORABLE.

I flirted, I tickled, I melted at their smiles and giggles. It was like the world had undergone some alchemic transformation. It took a few weeks before I realized that the change was in me. And I knew. I  knew I’d found someone with whom I could, and wanted to, share a life, a home…a family.

It was a long, winding road, but we got there at last. And today we have three beautiful children—and another, as yet unknown, growing beneath my heart. But although I doubted, I questioned, I second-guessed myself, the truth is that I knew Christian was the one the moment that I looked at a child and saw beauty.

Kathleen can be found writing at So Much to Say, So Little Time.  You can find her on Twitter at @kathleenmbasi

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