Calm Amongst the Chaos

Anger has to fade. At least for me it does. This must be a personality trait of mine. I don’t have the ability to hold a grudge and being angry doesn’t suit me well, so it had to fade.
To quote one of my favorite movies “Stop feeling sorry for yourself! It’s bad for your complexion!” What movie?
But how to free oneself of that anger? Looking back now it seems like there was a light bulb moment, but really there wasn’t, I’m sure there wasn’t. But you know hindsight.
There were a series of events that all worked together to help turn the light back on in my life.
One was reading a little book called Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. During the reading of that a lot of things seemed to make a little more sense. I started to realize maybe I was praying for the wrong things. Maybe being on my knees praying to make Lily “normal” was not what I needed to be praying for. I needed to pray for myself. Pray that I could accept Lily for who she is and pray that I do what I need to do to be her mom.
Now, easier said than done, absolutely, but I was on the right track. It took a lot to start praying again, it was a slow process but when I finally prayed that prayer the one that said “Lord help me”, I felt a weight come off my shoulder.
Having Andi Jane helped a lot a lot (I purposely wrote a lot twice to make a point). After I realized Andi was ok, and that wasn’t easy to finally realize, I was able to enjoy those typical milestones with her and enjoy Lily for the sweet cuddly girl she was. I’ve said it a million times; having both those girls is like having the best of both worlds.
And time. Time heals all they say, right? Well sometimes clichés are made because they are right. Over time I started to see who Lily was and who Lily was meant to be and I just started to accept her and all that came along with being her mom. And acceptance doesn’t mean I lost hope, it just means my sights were set more realistically. Some can believe that things will be how they imagine it to be, but not me. I am more of the hope for the best and plan for the worst because having your heart crushed on broken hopes hurts way too much.
None of this goes with out saying I still wish to see Lily run, laugh and talk. Oh to hear her voice. To hear her tell me about her day…that is the hardest thing about all this. Never hearing her voice. Having to be her voice. What if everything I think she likes isn’t what I think it is? I would love for Lily to say, mom actually I hate pink. Although picking the blue wheelchair kind of told me that. But yes my heart still breaks for that little girl I never got. But I have to remember to thank God for the little girl I did get. There were times (before Andi) I used to wish Lily would throw herself on the floor at Target because she didn’t get what she wanted. Then I had Andi Jane do that exact thing and I said, thank God Lily doesn’t do that. But no matter how accepting I am I can’t pretend that raising a special needs child, especially a severely affected special needs child, is easy peasy and I always have a great attitude because that is a lie. But staying angry at God and the world in general isn’t fair for me. Being angry only hurts me and my marriage and my family. So I really only had two choices, be angry or get over it. I chose to get over it. Some days I want to be angry and some days I just let myself be. But other days I fight with myself. And other days I wake up just excited to see Lily and revel in all that is Lily.