Something Close to Normal....

I wonder if this journey - all the illness and loss - has created a new emotional topography as visible and definitive as the  landscapes revealed by other natural disasters; tsunamis and epic earthquakes. Tendrils of hope and tenacity amidst disorienting and alien tableaus taking root to create entirely new visages.

Or if the changes are merely temporary and I will rebuild familiar edifices upon the foundations of an old life, forgetting this new landscape of gratitude, as time smoothes over the rough edges of newness?

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For now- I find myself reveling in the poignancy of normalcy; smiles, sand under my feet, dinner at the kitchen table, watching my daughter on the beach. I feel like I am a visitor from a strange land bearing witness to incredible and extraordinary beauty; a lived poetry.  In these moments,  I find myself wanting to slow down time so that seconds will expand into hours; slowing flashes into an unending amber sweetness of a honeyed childhood.  Moments to be savored because they are resoundingly free of illness, loss, and antithetical to the sterile halls of cheerfully decorated pediatric medical research units.

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I still don't quite believe that we have found a balance and ballast in the face of the rough waters of loss that left us without the girls' dad and Amelia's health. That these moments of wellbeing are our new normal; not fleeting chimeras of promise. Sarah is really cured, I am no longer bed-ridden due to my spine injury,  and we are all finding more moments of joy than sorrow.