What will separate us from [this love]? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? - Romans 8:35

Fair warning: I have staggered to this column from behind the sunrise. You're a parent. You've had interminable nights like this: a child in illness so extreme that sleep will not come for either of you. They cry and moan. You alternately hold them, clean up after them, pad quietly to the medicine cabinet and back, or simply hover and pace. The doctor's office is shut up tight for several more hours. There is nothing to do but hold on and ride it out together.

It's an ear infection this time. At least that's my best guess. This is no small ache. It's a big hurt beyond his ability to play tough-guy - a big hurt that no magic purple or orange syrup can touch. My arms, my lap, my softest voice, none of these do much good. But, still, he seeks them.

I remember a few big hurts of my own: opening my one good eye to see the blood from my split brow pooling in my mother's skirt; that same saint running interference for me after I was thrown from the snowmobile Dad had forbidden me to ride; Dad, 900 miles away, holding on and riding it out together with me over the phone when Teresa and I lost our first baby. These were times that not only tried our souls, but strengthened bonds and built a sacred, impervious trust between parent and child.

Parents. There is no amount of physical or emotional pain we will back away from when it comes to our children. Even when we can't take it away, we can prove again that nothing will ever separate them from our love.