My hero
Every day I wake up, drag myself out of bed to feed a hungry baby, unclog my head with enough caffeine to remember what meds to give Michaela that morning, stop her feeds that have been on all night to see if she will get hungry for breakfast, and the day continues through each task without any room for a mama to take a moment to consider her other options. I could stay in bed and let the baby cry, the feeding tube beep, Michaela get sick, Madeline grow too old for her age, and meanwhile just bury my head under my pillow and refuse to do anything about it. But that's not what mamas do. On the good days our husbands bring us our coffee first thing and we plow through the day in a series of check marks. I'm always surprised that somehow just getting out of bed and doing what anyone else would do is considered heroic or amazing. When the truth of it is that I don't have another choice. It's just what mamas do.
And now it looks as though day after day after day after day has eventually turned into a full year. Michaela's one-year anniversary has arrived and we are still in the thick of the battle with more wounds than we care to count. SHE has more wounds than we care to count. As the hardest, most exhausting, most terrifying year of my life comes to a close I am being haunted by what has been stolen from us this year: normalcy. We've lost a year in the blur of sleep deprivation, survival skills, and (yes I admit it) a good deal of fear. And yet, although the robber has been here and the house is stripped bare, we still possess the most precious jewel in the world ... our daughter's life. That is the remnant of our stolen year. And I truly don't care what I have to do each day as long as I get to keep it.
