Having children changes everything.

So, is anyone else watching 24? We have been recording it, since the husband can't watch it the night it airs. We watch it, instead, on the nights he's home. Tonight, though, I cheated and peeked while it was on to see who was going to die.

Wow. What I got was a scene where a dad is saying good-bye to his little girl, because he's going to die to say everyone else.

I lost it when the little girl asked, "When are you coming home, Daddy?"

I've never been afraid of death. According to my religious beliefs, death is just going home. "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home." William Wordsworth

Then I had children and everything changed. I'm still not afraid of death for my own sake. But I am terrified of my dying and leaving them without me. Even during the post partum depression, when I wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not, one of the big things that kept me fighting the urge to kill myself was the thought of what that would do to my daughters.

Which has left me vulnerable to even something as hokey and manipulative as that scene tonight. I don't even have time to pause to process what I'm hearing. I'm identifying on a visceral level before I consciously realize what's happening, and sobbing seconds after that.

Even with a remote, televisions just don't shut off fast enough sometimes.

I can't die. I'm a mother. My children depend on me for everything right now and their emotional need for me will still be there, strong and deep, for decades to come. Here I am, in my fifth decade of life, and I still love talking to my mother. I go to her for advice and comfort; I long for her when I am sick and miserable. She is the most beautiful woman in the world; no other woman could possibly be as beautiful as my mother, because I love her so much.

I can't go, not until they are capable of taking care of themselves. I have to stay until they don't need me anymore, until I've taught them everything I have to share about what I've learned in life. I have to be there when they need me as children, as teenagers, as young adults, as early mothers, as mothers of teens, as women coping with their children leaving, their husbands' dying. I have to live to be 100, not for me, but for them. And I have to teach them to love and trust and rely on each other, because the day will inevitably come when I can't be there for them and they will need each other.

I will not be watching this episode of 24 with the husband. To be honest, I'm not sure if he'll be able to watch it himself once I warn him. He's got a very tender spot himself, because of parenthood. He had it even when we met, and now I understand why.