Amazing Grace

There are all sorts of cute quotes that are supposed to describe what it's like to be a parent. Like: having a baby changes things forever. And: having a child is like having your heart walk around outside your body (or something like that, either way it's an annoying saying). What no one tells you is that at times it's painful to have a child. I'm not talking the pain of birth or even "OMG turn down the music" type of pain. I'm talking about emotional pain that becomes physical pain.
I've decided that, for a variety of reasons, my life was easier when I had a newborn, a one and a half year old, and a 3 year old all at the same time. THAT was difficult, no doubt about that.  One of the reasons I've decided it was easier is because of what I'm going through right now with my G Girl. 
Grace is my oldest, and is almost 15. She looks like me, she acts like me, and she thinks like me. Her body also decided to inherit a nasty organ suffocating, extremely painful condition from me. The horror of watching my baby girl in pain is unlike anything I've gone through. I've been through life-saving surgeries, I've been through incredible pain that I can't describe, and I've given birth at home. I would do all of those things over and over again if it would take away her pain.
I had my Gracie when I was 16 and I put everything I had into being a Mom to her. It wasn't easy, but I wanted to prove to the world that I could be a good Mom. Grace and I are extremely close. I honestly have only met only one other mother-daughter team that are as close as Grace and I are, and that is another woman who had become a Mom as a teenager. I know many Moms are close to their daughters, but this is different and I think part of that is due to the small age gap.
No one told me when I became a Mom that I would be willing to break Commandments to fix my kids. When Gracie is on the floor crying from the pain, or scaring me with a seizure at the dentist's office, I honestly feel like a helpless child. I want my Mom to step in and tell me it'll be okay and tell me what to do. Then I remember I have a child looking to me for reassurance and I have to be the strong one. When the doctors can't control her pain with morphine, and all I can see is pain in her face, it takes all I have in my being to not attack the nursing staff. It's not their fault, and I know they're doing all they can, but it's an urge in me to just plow them down and do it myself. Instead I hold Gracie's hand while the tears run down my face and I hold in the urge to scream. I miss the days of an owie disappearing with a kiss and a popsicle. Now, watching her in pain, I hurt. I've been where she is, I know this pain all too well, and knowing she got it from me makes it 10 times worse. I not only know this pain, I hurt from my heart breaking watching her go through it.
When she crawls into my bed at night and wants me to hold her till the medicine kicks in, I think about how I'll be able to hold up when she's in pain far away from me. How will I ever be able to let go enough to let her move out of the house and not be there to hold her hand? When she buries her face in my chest when she's getting an IV so she won't pass out at the sight of blood, I know I would drive a million miles to do that same thing for her when she's an adult.
In some aspects parenting gets easier as they get older. With the G Child, it's about guiding her as she becomes an adult. Then there is this side of it that makes me wish she was 3 again.
The hardest part of being a parent is being strong on the outside when you're crumbling on the inside.