Recaptured

Someday, when I have heaps of regret for not taking enough pictures or videos of my children, I hope that I will remember how I'm feeling today.

I'm willing the big brown eyes, toothy smiles, and the little bird voices to be tattooed on my soul, in my being forever. I breathe these moments like air, treasuring them so much that I don't even want to share them with anyone else. These are my moments.

I've learned that my heart doesn't discriminate the memories. It is shaped by the amazing moments in life just as much as the sorrowful. It plays tricks on me, turning the good times bittersweet when I realize they can't last just one minute longer. And the hurtful times bring joy when the weeping finally ends.

Just yesterday I had to look up Noah's story to see how long he has been seizure-free. There was a time that I was consumed with the hours, days, weeks from his last seizure. I never could have imagined years later I'd be sitting here trying to figure out how long it's been. I haven't forgotten one moment of that hardship and I don't need pictures to take me back there.

I am a different person because of it, but I am not still stuck there. I could never allow that to define me. I've taken pieces of it and unlike trinkets or souvenirs, I've not set it on a shelf to reflect on once in a while. To wallow in self pity. It's no longer something I feel I can use as my crutch.

Because I walk better without it.

What we went through, what we continue to go through, is very much real. Is very much life. And I've allowed it to nurture the person I've become, or really, am becoming.

The edge I stand on is never the same day to day. Where yesterday I felt like I was about to fall, and what was below seemed scary and unknown, today I see the excitement for the jump. For what lies unexpectedly ahead.

With or without pictures.


Originally published May 28, 2008

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