Through My Prayers

February 19, 2013

Valentine’s Day 2013: An amazing happy day that taught me that I have a lot of healing to do.

This Valentine’s Day was the best day possible.  We moved Phoenix to kindergarten that week, and she began to love school, which changed my daily life dramatically.  1^st grade was a struggle, to say the least, and was stressing she and I out in a completely unnecessary way.  So this week we were already feeling an upswing.  I took her to the afternoon kinder valentine party where she exchanged valentines, played musical chairs, hot potato, pin the tail on the donkey, and on and on and on.  She was enjoying herself so much, that I was overwhelmed with pure joy.  My heart was doing somersaults inside my body!  Parents and teachers came from all over the school to see her, speak to me, and also bask in the glory of this miracle child.  At some point I started to flash back to VDay 2012.  It happens to me all the time, and of course I cannot control it, not that I want to forget…but maybe choose the timing of the remembering.  Feb. 14, 2012 she and I were admitted to Riley to begin her 2^nd round of consolidation chemotherapy.  Jan. 23^rd (my bday) was her 1^st round of inpatient chemo.   Feb. 4^th we traveled to Indy for her 2^nd eye surgery and that night we were inpatient in South Bend for mouth sores, neutropenia, fever of 103, and of course, there was the eye pain.  She (and her counts) bounced back after a few days, so we stayed on schedule for round 2 at Riley.  So Vday… I remember that she ate a Happy Meal and went down to the library to make valentines and crafts…she received a Build a Bear from the hospital…and sent a pic to Janna.  The next time she would walk or eat would be almost 2 months later.  Those 2 months will be their own story.

Back to 2013.  In the evening, John took me to see my favorite band, the Avett Brothers in Fort Wayne.  The show was so amazing.  The music felt so good inside my soul, and brought me to tears just a few songs into the show.  I nearly cried through the whole show.  I wasn’t really sure why I was crying…I was just overcome with emotion…I was just feeling so much..., well, feeling.  “The feeling of feeling.”  I felt so in love with my husband, with his arm around my waist, singing along to this music that we both love so much.  I felt a piece of myself that I thought didn’t existed anymore, the youthful carefree hippie groupie music lover that could have been a Dead-Head.  And then it came to me; I felt happy.  And I felt like a person.  I was feeling happy, the way normal people can be happy about something random and good.  I felt like a person… a person who wasn’t a mom, or wife, or nurse, or therapist, or pharmacist, or cook, or maid, or teacher, or constant worrier.  Again I flashback, and its to a very dark place that still exists inside me.  I can still remember what it feels like to not want to be alive…to think that everything good in the world is gone…to have my heart and soul torn out of my body…to feel nothing but fear…and to not know if I could ever feel truly good ever again.

So these wounds are here, but they are healing.  And even while they slowly do, I can feel happy and loved and loving.  I love love.