Calm Amongst the Chaos

This is the time we remember what we are most thankful for. And I could give you a list as long as the world is wide. I am thankful for so much. From the shoes that cover my feet to the roof that doesn’t leak that is over my head. Thankful for one clogged toilet because it isn’t two. I am one who does her best to find the light in dark. It is how I am wired and it is one of the few things I like in myself.
Last night was a rough night. Lily had a seizure in PT, then fell asleep and slept hard for over an hour. She woke up just to have another seizure. Then she didn’t want to eat and didn’t go back to sleep very well. So when Andi Jane whom I always let pick a book for me to read from each night before bed asked for some odd reason to read from Lily’s baby book, I was like really? “Really Andi this is what you want me to read” and she said “yes I want to learn more about Lily”. OK so I read.
I start with the easy stuff, how mom and dad met, how my pregnancy was, then her birth. Then the stupid milestone page that was practically blank. I remember not being able to wait to write the dates of crawling, pulling up, walking, saying mama and dada. But those spots were blank. I trudged on. Reading about her first holiday being Halloween and she was hospitalized at that time. I read her dr. appointments that were supposed to be about well checks and ear infections, yet this was EEG, VEEG, MRI, Pet-Scan, etc. It was awful. Then the last page was where I wrote a letter to my one year old daughter. One who I still thought would still graduate from college and I quickly gave Andi a kiss good night and went into the kitchen and cried into my hands. I sobbed for what I had back then that I don’t have anymore and that is hope. I hope this isn’t taken wrong, I still have hope that there will be a cure, I still have hope that the future can change. But I am also not still hoping for a life that isn’t going to be Lily’s life. And it is sad to look back after 8 years of change and see what you thought it would be and it isn’t.
And while this is all sad, admittedly sad, it’s not hopeless. And I am not thankless for sucky things. Without Lily in our lives who knows where would I be. Who’d I be. What priorities would I set and where would my compassion levels be? I don’t think I was ever not a compassionate person, nor an unloving person, or a person with ill set priorities, but I do think I am now a person of more. More love, more understanding, more heart and more passion. So I am thankful for those blank spots on that milestone page. As much as it sucks, I am thankful for them. Because it is those pages that has shaped our lives, our homes, our priorities and it is that precious girl who never has to fill in those blanks that I am most thankful for.
So hug your babies, hug your family. Be thankful for the people God placed in your life, in your family because there may be times you wonder why God set old Aunt Edna in your life and at the seat next to you, but maybe if you listen to what she has to say, even if it is after she tells you she doesn’t like you hair style, she may have something powerful to say. Or maybe God just wants you to practice your patience.
Happy Thanksgiving. I know I have tons to be thankful for, I am sure you do to.
XOXO