Last night, our family went to see Wonder. I started crying about five minutes in and cried on and off the whole time. The kids were elbowing each other, pointing to me, completely dumbfounded.
There's no way they can understand. How can I explain I feel that mother's pain - even if she is pretend - when she panics to save her sick child at school? How can I explain the guilt I feel when I watch the older daughter walking into her room feeling neglected, wondering if I've done the same to mine? Or the sick feeling of remembering sitting alone in the lunch room so many years ago?
Sitting here on Thanksgiving, I'm reflecting on the many moments that affected me for so long that I didn’t understand their impact until far later.
- Running my infant to the ER vomiting blood
- Walking into the nursery where she fell over the crib and broke her arm
- Spending the night on the floor when he broke his leg, while my parents drove all night to make sure we had Christmas the next day
- Sitting in the hospital being told a child could lose his vision, or even his life, and they couldn't find the cause
- Sitting in the hospital being told he could have a lifelong heart problem
- Finding my daughter on a toilet with her bowels hanging out, unable to get up
- Spending holidays picking out lice, cleaning up vomit... you get the drift
So on this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful everything in my life is so wonderful that I’m free to cry. I wish you all the same.
