Tonight the house was quiet.
Just Miss Courtney and I.
Daddy traveling for work. Big brother earning his own way in the world.
Vivaldi's Four Season's plays on the iPod, the powerful strings sweeping us away from spring to summer to fall and onward in time.
The music soothes and calms my spirit making me stop for just a moment to look around at the miracle of this one moment in time, for it shall not come again.
I sweep Courtney's gangly body into my arms and we settle onto the sofa. Mama holding her baby. Courtney curls into my chest and smiles. She fold her long legs up and tries to fit all of her string bean self on my lap.
We compromise, half on lap, half on sofa. I yearn for the days when she curled into me and slept sweetly for hours on end, recovering from the nightmare of seizure after seizure. I don't miss the seizures mind you, just that close hold of mother and child.
This moment is sweet and I sing to her softly trying not to break the spell. The weight of her is comforting. I watch her chest rise and fall with ease reminding me of when she has to fight so hard to fill her lungs.
I close my eyes and say a prayer of thanksgiving. She is here, she is well, she is loved.
I savor these quiet moments and try desperately to catalog them in my Mama's heart hoping to outnumber the memories that make me wake at night with sweat dripping, hands clenched and heart racing.
This caregiving thing...this total surrender of one's life to totally love and care for another...this is not easy...ever.
I fail every single day.
I am a selfish woman at heart. I want what I want when I want it and I want everyone to love me at the same time.
My daughter just wants her Mama's love, which seems so simple and yet feels like such a hardship sometimes.
I rock her back and forth and she smiles, drool saturating my blouse and she giggles. My big beautiful sweet miracle. I don't know what the future holds.
Hell, who does and I am so tired of worrying about it.
So damn tired.
I look back on this last year and am amazed that we are where we are. We have survived many obstacles and still find a reason to laugh. There is joy in these four walls.
There are hard moments. Hellishly hard moments.There are disagreements and discord but in the end there is forgiveness.
There is contentment most days. There is a hell of a lot of love for sure.
There is the power of this one moment in time pressed hard upon my hearts memory.
She is here. She is well. She is loved.
Now all we need is a winning lottery ticket...Labels: Courtney's World, My Crazy Life
