Just as an example:
- When I saw Les Miserables again with family at New Year's, I was surprised to be most moved by Fantine's story, of a mother just trying to do anything to ensure her child's survival—when before (as a heartsick young teenager), Eponine was always the character that moved me the most.
- Right after Devyn was born, I could not watch the news on TV, because they were talking all about the horrific plight of people, and specifically children, starving in Africa. I could not watch because I ended up sobbing and clutching Devyn to me.
- I saw The Hunger Games this weekend at the movies. I read the book before I was pregnant, before Devyn was born, and while they were certainly not HAPPY books, they didn't really disturb me. I found myself having to pinch myself hard in the movie theater not to dissolve into tears when the youngest of the "tributes" met their ends.
And today, I found out that a girl I went to high school with has been arrested in a horrifying child abuse case that ended in the death of the child. I'm so viscerally appalled by this, I can barely put words to it.
And I have no doubt that the twisting, agonized gut reaction I'm having to the story has a great deal to do with the beautiful baby girl playing nearby.
I've always been an empathetic person, but it appears Devyn has multiplied my empathy for mothers and children a thousandfold.
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