Your children have only one childhood. The years in which they need you – in which they really need you – flash by like a star shooting through the sky. A blink of an eye and they go from babies to toddlers. Another blink and they’re starting school. A third blink and they’re teenagers, stretching their wings and preparing for life without you. And then, one day, when you’re certain it can’t have been more than a few months since you first held them in your arms – bloodied and mucus-coated, their hungry mouths reaching for your breast – they’re gone.
