Skip to main content

Pause for Reflection

Eighteen years ago today my life changed forever.  At 7:11 AM  I held in my arms a wee, pink, bundle with peach fuzz hair and ten little fingers and ten little toes.  I was oblivious to the intern doing my stitches (until he asked the resident if they looked ok...that caught my attention for a second----yes please, do they LOOK OK!!!!) as I stroked his lips, his ears, his cheeks, his feet.

I was in awe that this 7 lbs wonder had only minutes before been living safely inside me and was now out here in the big wide world and it was just the two of us. 

My marriage had dissolved when I was four months pregnant and my life purpose crystalized when my doctor asked me if I was feeling like I might hurt myself or someone else as I sat crying in her office after my husband left.  The tears dried up immediately. I was having a baby. THAT child and I were priority number one...I dismissed her as absurd. I had never felt stronger in my life that this was what I was meant to do...be a mom.


Alex in his jellyroll in the aquarium.
Since it was my first baby and I had good insurance I got to stay in the hospital two nights. The
nurses continued to pull his little glass aquarium to the end of my bed so I could get some rest, and I continued to pull it back to the side of my bed, reach in and grab the jelly roll that was Alex and pull him into my arms where I knew he would be safe. How had I existed before--how had I thought I knew what love was......

Eighteen years later, Alex and I share our lives with Rick, with his son Noah and with Jake--the most energetic, brilliant, funny, accident prone 8 year old Rick and I have the privilege to call son...and two lovely dogs.


Alex has a dad who is in his life frequently and we all get along really well.  He visits his grandmother and very large, extended New Brunswick family out East with his dad occasionally--and he is occupies the space in Jakes heart reserved for best friends only.  (I love to see them play--every --single---day).  Alex has grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. 

But...


He will always belong to me.  He will always be my baby.  Even when he leaves for university to borrow a song lyric --I belong to you, you belong to me you are my sweetheart.  Always and Forever.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Keeping Afloat in Darkness - When Robin Williams is Gone

A few weeks ago Robin Williams was everywhere you looked. People were desperate for details; to find the one thing that assured them that his situation was so different from theirs that they are safe; that it could never be them. But if you suffer from depression, the suicide of such a brilliant, successful, individual; part of our lives for so many years and responsible for so many laughs; looks like a leak in your boat. A friend asked me, "Ok but no one knows what the future holds.  Could he not see that?" For someone drowning in the dark spiral of depression, there is no future. There is only now. There is only nothing.  The boat is gone.  You are under. It is not about your spouse or your friends or your kids or career or fans or dogs or anything.  When the darkness squeezes it is all about now.  And now is nothing.  It is bleak and empty and so dark, you cannot see a bottom, or edges or surface ---just darkness. "Some...

It's All About the Here and Now

Today is a good day.   I have positioned my laptop on the dining room table in a way so that I can see the bird feeders.  Even through the closed doors I can hear the unique  warble of the yellow finches that have recently begun to frequent my yard.   This morning, cardinals-- the male brilliant in his scarlet coat and black mask -- returned, and as I watched, the male flew back and forth from the sunflower seeds to feed his mate .    Watching the birds gives me great joy and so I am trying to take the time to do this each day.  Were it not for this blog and how it makes me sit down and think, I can't say I would sit still long enough to do this. Taking time for myself is still a foreign concept. It is ironic that I have tried to attract birds to our pet free, quiet yard for years and the first year we have two dogs (one a squirrel/bird chasing terrier who launches hers...

Being Enough

I am grateful that the chapters in The Gifts of Imperfection are short.  Each one overflows with concepts that ask you to reach down to your very core and dig around a bit with a sharp object.  Sometimes you have to pull back and take a break.  Like at the dentist...when you have to put your hand up...they let you close your mouth for a minute....you stretch your jaw....rinse maybe.  "You ok to continue?" You lie back, take a breath, try to get comfortable, open up, look at the outline of the hand holding the drill backlit by that horrible light...and nod. Not to say it is all bad.  But this chapter on Exploring the Power of Love, Belonging, and Being Enough made me uncomfortable in my skin.  I squinted a lot.  Really, really trying to get at what she was saying without having to feel what she is saying....which is not the purpose.  So I had to read the chapter a few times.  Then I fiddled around on Facebook and Outlook to avoid sta...