We do a lot of therapies for this girl: speech, occupational, gross motor, & feeding. The post-therapy activity feels run the gamut for both of us. I don’t have access to Lydie’s thoughts on the subject, just observations on her temperament & naps. As for my own emotional responses, they go something like this: “Hey, that went pretty well!” or on other days, “Just another day in the books.” Some days there’s compassion mixed with pride, “You worked so hard.” There’s the rare, sparkling unicorn days of, “I didn’t even know you knew that! You killed it!!!” celebrations; but, far more often, it’s, “This is hard. This is really, really hard.” Yesterday was one of the latter for me, reflecting more of my mental state than anything she did or did not do in therapy. All the same, the “did or did not” checklist often weighs heavily on my mind and heart. I worry about her place in society, in public school in the next couple years, in life with her peers. I count abilities and struggles and the space we have yet to make up in oh so many tasks and milestones. There is so much we both struggle to do. I was having this discouraged and worry-fraught conversation with myself in my head on our way home from therapy, yesterday, completely overwhelmed. It was a dreary snowy day so I’m sure that didn’t help. I pulled into our garage, got out of the car, & walked to Lydia’s passenger side to get her out. As I opened her door and looked at her in her car seat, her face erupted into smiles and she just BEAMED light at me as she started happily jabbering away like she does. That moment a thought hit me as hard as her brilliant joy: “But Annie, she is SO GOOD at LOVING.”
Time stopped.
I thought of Ukraine and the deepest problems of our world and I realized that, while she has many challenges, my girl has the most important things right. She is an expert on love. She is a teacher of the weightier matters; something the whole world needs.
#misslydiefaith
