The one about choosing

Last night I saw a picture with this wording

I’ve always loved that quote (though I thought the book was a bit ridiculous to be honest!) so I thought about what it means to me. We choose so many people in our lives, we choose our friends and we choose our partners. But to me this is about our children. How despite our daily struggles we wouldn’t change them for the world. Even the ones who are gone. Of course some of the circumstances should definitely be different and wouldn’t be anyone’s choice, but the actual children themselves? Is there anyone who would seriously not choose the same ones if you had to? Surely very few, if any.

So I turned it around to another view that was brought to my attention a few weeks ago. What if our children chose us? The ones who could love and care for them the most, in the unique ways that they needed. The ones they felt they could love unconditionally even when they made mistakes (like all parents do).

So what about the children who didn’t stay long on this earth. How would they choose their parents? Surely their criteria must be different, I can see them crossing things off their checklist now.

“Will play with me at the park and teach me to ride a bike” nope not important.
“Will always feed me healthy foods” don’t need those!
“Values a good education” won’t be needing that either!

Now I’m certainly not saying the parents they chose did not have those attributes too, because I’m sure they all do, I just mean I imagine those children to have a unique set of criteria that is important to their short lives. Things like

“will make sure I’m not forgotten”
“will not give up even when they feel defeated”
“will find new ways to include me in their lives”
“will one day be able to inspire somebody else”
“will one day see why I chose them over all others”

Having said that I know a lot of people will be reading this thinking that their child made a really shitty choice. That they have none of those qualities which seem so obviously important. But I believe deep down you all have those things inside. Some of them are hidden from you for now and some of them you’re not at the right time for just yet. But one day I hope you will see them. One day I hope you will know why your child chose you. One day you will see in yourself what they saw in you, the day they made their choice.