One Year stronger

I had a little breakdown this morning as I was running around dealing with the typical chaos of four kids at home, two recovering from sickness, all wanting breakfast, plus two animals who also want their breakfast. It just hit me – one year ago on this day i was still blissfully (ha!) pregnant, with no idea what was about to hit our lives. My mom drove down, and we shopped for baby things (since poor little baby #4 had nothing new for herself!), and I went to the office at church and got work done, and I went and stood in line for 45 minutes to get the new church computer, and then I had to jumpstart my car with the help of my darling sister, and then I got my toes done so they looked pretty for pictures.

And then the craziness started.

I remember being in a pretty far away place with the pain and other delirium of whatever was going on inside – clearly a harbinger of the stress poor baby kendall was already under.

But it was just a regular average sunny day like this. I remember that it was a beautiful day for November – I remember walking into the hospital in a t-shirt, light pants, and sandals.

And four days later, when I walked out baby-less, in more pain than I have ever experienced in my life – it was snowing. And bitterly cold.

How often our lives can change just like that.

So I was thinking – wow, has it really only been ONE year? Just a year? It seems like, in so many ways, a lifetime. A lifetime of heartache, of worry, of waiting, of hoping, of praying, of begging God to just please fix her, of surviving, of celebrating the little things, of adjusting, of learning. A whole lifetime of all that stuff, crammed into one 365-day stretch of time. And I thought back to all that has happened in this year and it just kind of made my eyes start leaking. Just a little bit.

Maybe its because it has been a LONG week without Ben.  Maybe it’s just a little bit of cabin fever setting in and the wonderful emotional havoc that comes with sitting and holding hot feverish babies in a rotating manner for 48 hours straight. Maybe it’s just that all the emotions of the past year are finally coming to a head as I prepare for this party celebrating her first year of life, making a slideshow, seeing the pictures of just how sick she was, looking at how amazingly far she has come. Probably a little of all of the above. Throw in some of the still-processing emotions of her diagnosis recently and there you have it. A virtual hot-mess of emotional breakdown over cereal on a random Friday morning.

But I am going to choose today to look at myself as being one year stronger. one year wiser. one year closer to my virtual medical degree. one year better.

One year more blessed than I could have ever imagined or hoped for.

I’m trading in my hurt and tears over this year for smiles and joy and celebration.

I am looking forward to another year of milestones and miracles, smiles and giggles, learning and growing and stretching.

 

this one’s not done yet, so i can’t officially sign off.

just…

 

stay tuned.