Reality Ain't So Bad...Most Days

I was wanting to write some more on my blog, but with a husband away for work, my time and emotions were stretched. Instead, I jotted some ideas into a book to remember for when I had a few moments. The moment is here, but unfortunately the sentiments of only days prior are no longer the same. That's the thing. I have good days...mostly good days and bad days. Unfortunately, yesterday was a bad day and I'm still in that weepy place of feeling emotionally raw. It didn't help that I read another blog that took me right back to the emotions of the beginning of my journey. My blog idea was that the diagnosis is often more frightening and heart wrenching than the reality. If you can live in the day and I can hold my sweet girl and play with her and feed her and watch her smile at her brothers...when I feel her sloppy kisses on my cheek and wiggle her toes into the feet of her sleeper...life is good. I played a game with the boys and even read them a story, I got a load of laundry in and talked to a friend, supper was ready when Jeff returned home and it was delicious. Life is good. Nothing is so difficult or unusual about my life compared to someone else. It's just my perspective. If I look at it as a hardship, it will be one. If I just focus on my day and the blessings of the day, it is a good life. Don't feel bad for me, don't act like there's a problem...I'm okay, life's a little different than I thought, but good. THEN the bad day came. It started ironically with Little M watching the light fixtures. Only days a go I wrote about her wonder at the light fixtures and how I wish I could appreciate the small things like she does. Instead of appreciating her wonder at the lights, I began to fixate on how much she was watching the lights. She wasn't responding to me or what was happening around her, she wasn't looking as I called her name, she was cooing at my bids for her attention, she was watching a light fixture. The unknown started to creep in and overwhelm me. What if that is all that she will be able to do? What if she never replies back to my words? What if she sits in a chair as a grown woman still cooing at light fixtures? I feel broken inside, sick to my stomach. Somehow hope had slipped back in and I had begun to imagine her playing with friends, cuddling with me watching movies, painting toenails together, talking. I don't care about how much she succeeds in school, if she goes to school. I want to give her opportunity for success and to support her, but a letter on report card means nothing to me. I've even come to grips with the fact that she may never walk...but I had imagined her with an awareness and an ability to interact with me, that I realized may not be reality as I watched her face glaze over. Now yes, it may be. Yes, she is surpassing original expectations in all her areas of development. Yes, there is reason to be thankful and hopeful. And even if she sits and stares and that is all she achieves, that will be enough. She is a beautiful and wonderful creation and she is enough. Some days those words flow freely and filled with joy and hope...some days my heart hurts as I tearfully choose to still utter them.