Whatever you have accomplished or hope to accomplish, there is something you will never be able to top. As the Catholic activist— and possible future saint—Dorothy Day wrote: If I had written the greatest book, composed the greatest symphony, painted the most beautiful painting or carved the most exquisite figure, I could not have felt the more exalted creator than I did when they placed my child in my arms. . . . No human creature could receive or contain so vast a flood of love and joy as I felt after the birth of my child. With this came the need to worship, to adore.
That feeling, the one you felt the first day you held your children. The feeling when they run into your arms and call you Daddy, or when they come into your room to ask for advice, or when you sit across the table from them and watch them eat. That feeling—the pride, the love, the connection—this is the feeling to carry with you.
You made that. You are the exalted creator of that. Parent in a way that proves it.