Different doesn’t mean less happy
My life perspective completely flipped the day my baby girl had her first ear surgery.
A little bit of our back story, Camilla had recently been discharged from the NICU after a 118-day long stay. During an in-home visit with a vision specialist, we found out Camilla was blind. We knew something was off with her eyes, but blind?!?! How??? So many other things were going wrong in her little body, how could her eyes be failing her too? I felt like God had no mercy on our family and that we couldn't catch a very well-deserved break. My heart was shattered that day.
Fast forward to surgery day, I was sitting in an incredibly stuffy waiting room where time seemed to creep by at an impressively slow speed. My sedated Camilla was down a distant sterile hallway surrounded by a medical team determined to figure out why she couldn't hear. Today was the day I'd find out if my baby was blind AND deaf. I felt like the world was falling apart in slow motion.
I went up to a different part of the hospital that was usually empty to spend the next several hours of my waiting time. A few moments later, a dad and his blind son sat next to me. I felt frozen in time like their existence was a preview of my reality. It was agonizing.
But then something amazing happened. The blind boy listened to IV poles rolling by and asked his dad to explain what was going on. A sickly man, who looked like he was wasting away and waiting to die, lowered his head as the dad explained "Someone is walking by and it looks like he has cancer". Without hesitation, the blind boy leaped to his feet. He enthusiastically began to jump, clap, and cheer for a brave stranger fighting death. The man's eyes brightened, his mouth found its long-lost smile, and he stood a little taller. As I watched this blind boy create happiness and hope out of thin air, I realized something, there is joy to be found in a life that is different. Yes, my life will have its challenges, but it will also have its magic. I am a lucky lucky mom❤️🩹
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