Yesterday I wrote about one of my lucky super powers, the ability to freeze time, to sink down into a breath, a moment, and soak it in as best I can. It is a power that helps me get through the hard work that is everyone’s daily reality. I credit this power, this gift, to Willow. Both my girls, of course. When Willow was born, Sierra’s fate and life became instantly intertwined with her’s, and they are a unit. Her life is equally affected by Willow’s medically fragile status and special needs. I am most grateful for this gift, and I work hard at it honestly. When Willow was hospitalized last year and everything went so terribly wrong at first, it knocked me back quite a bit. I had nightmares for weeks, which I can only liken to PTSD of sorts. It was traumatic, for us both. Incidentally, several members and their camper kids who are now at AADC with Willow and Lilly and all the other kiddos came to sit with us that frightful weekend, bringing food for me and blessed latte’s, toys and books and balloons and love and blessed diversion for poor Willow. Saints. Anyway, to help me deal with the process I started seeing a therapist trained in meditation, and I found the practice of meditation to be extremely helpful in getting me past that phase. It is a practice I have fallen out of, and I need to get back in it. I would encourage anyone else to try it, more self-awareness and relaxation is exactly what this world needs…
So, to put my money where my mouth is, I am trying to follow what I so self-righteously preach. Girls are happy campers, and I am home. It is quiet, minus the weirdly non-stop sound of houses getting new roofs that seem to be the anthem of springtime in the suburbs. The beagle and corgi are sniffing around the yard and I am on my new birthday swing, listening to birdsong and sipping peppermint tea. This is a good thing, all around. I am watching the mimosa tree I saved from an overbearing honeysuckle, the new branches and leaves are billowing in the breeze, and the myriad birds who love this yard are enjoying the shade in its branches. It’s cliche but relevant to say I live for moments like these. I love the company and surrounding embrace of family, but I have also always been a girl of solitude, especially outdoors. I’m a tree hugger through and through, hence my Willow’s name. I am content right now, however, I am also very pensive.
This whole week has been saturated with heavy thoughts. My own personal ones, as I meditate upon Willow and how she is changing so much, growing into adulthood. Her size has suddenly become a significant issue in that I can’t just pick my baby up and move her around anymore. I just rearranged her entire room last week due to the necessary delivery of a lift. This large device can now help me get her out of bed, to her toilet, then to her chair, etc. It will save my back and arms terrible strain, but the notion of it all is quite overwhelming. With her growing body come new diagnoses, new discoveries and developments with her chromosomal disorder, and all that necessitates change, and acceptance. Not easy.
But then there’s Orlando. This whole week has been clouded with the reality of brutal hatred, and slowly as young kids keep hearing it on the news, in discussion, they learn. And their world of innocence is shattered all the more, and they have nightmares, and it absolutely breaks my heart. The reality that my friends and I will dance this year at Pride, but unlike last year when everyone was celebrating the newfound freedom of basic equality, and I danced like a 40 something fool to the deep embarrassment of Sierra, this year people are afraid. That is just so wrong. So wrong.
But this week, our kids are safe. They are so, so happy, playing with costumes and creating dance routines, writing scripts and delving deep into fantasy and creativity together. Each kid is considering how to include everyone, and they dance and sing and laugh and bliss out while they learn crucial, desperately necessary notions of acceptance. Love. Supporting each other and lending a hand when you can. The right thing to do. AADC is a safe place, where moms like me can sit and be lazy for two hours and sip tea and listen to the birds, and watch that jerk chipmunk steal yet another strawberry, the little asshole, knowing our kids are safe and loved, and learning more valuable lessons than any book can teach. I can feel the Quality of the world improving down the road at Jessamine Early Learning Village, the ripples of love and enjoyment of life spreading out and hopefully, with all our encouragement, it can over power the bad ripples, the one that bring sadness and nightmares into little kid’s heads. I believe they can. I really do.
So grateful for AADC, maybe this year most of all. Good works, folks. Good works…
whitewillow 