I’ve at at this keyboard for quite some time thinking of just how to contextualize what the last month has been for me.
Thus far, each adventure with color has been pretty light, manageable I should say. Not much that I hadn’t been through before and certainly nothing that required anything more than a shift in mindset, a serious look at my excuses and a fair effort in daily disciplines. All of which, I felt that I had grown enough to look at myself and be willing to apply myself.
Little did I know how everything I had been doing up until this month was preparing me for the moments held within.
I started the month finally prepared to release a truth that I had been holding onto to twenty-five years, I can’t say that I ever really believed the I could or would do it. To let it out felt selfish, I wasn’t expecting how guilty I would feel and I didn’t expect anyone to stand by me the way they did.
It took some time to settle in that it wasn’t selfish at all and in fact, I would have been safe to come out with it sooner. I was honest because I was tired of lying, I was honest because my inner child deserved the truth and as a mother I needed to trust that my own children would be safe.
Something I was expecting to come out of that was an apology and to this day I still have not received one which has only further cemented my trust in myself and the divine timing of when I chose to speak up about what happened to me as a child.. I’ll be honest when I say that I think now that might hurt just as bad as the abuse itself. There is definitely a part of me that wanted him to seek my forgiveness, to repent and I don’t know that I currently have the space to pretend like even after the truth was out there was only more pretending on his part. Therefore, the best thing I know to do with my present awareness is to no longer have contact with my abuser and with that I mourn the loss of my father.
Through that loss however, I have been able to meet my husband on a level greater than before. As I cut myself out of those lies and false narratives, I have recognized my partner to be in his masculine power like I have never seen him in before. His self-discipline and confidence has softened me up like a stick of butter at room temperature.
While I have toyed with the thoughts over and over that perhaps he has always been this way and I have simply had too many walls up to see him clearly it ultimately does me no good because it pulls me out of the delicious present. A place in which I don’t have to worry because I trust him to be my shield should I need him and still it is a place in which I feel powerful, free and wild with passion. I am madly in love.
From that love and union, we’ve grown three extraordinary humans. And this month, all three of my babies contracted Hand, Foot, Mouth which affected each of them differently. Intuition feels different when you’re a mother in my opinion because I feel like there will always been a contrast of insecurity because there is so much about raising children that we cannot possibly know it all. It’s a fine line between that insecurity and a gut feeling that something isn’t as it should be. On some level, we will have to be okay with the possibility that our ignorance can cost us and we have to proceed anyway.
The girls were the first to come down with HFM and when our son got it, something felt different. In the days prior, he had been wetting the bed and we knew something was up when it just didn’t feel like it was because he was drinking a lot of water before bed.
Monday of that week, he had been moody all day which we attributed to perhaps him still not feeling his best after being exposed to HFM although he never developed any blisters. That evening, he randomly began to throw up while we were all outside caring for our animals. From there his health began to quickly decline.
In less than a week, our son lost nearly ten pounds which became our main indication that this was not just a virus and something else was going on, it didn’t seem plausible that throwing up in two days would cause what we were seeing in him.
By Wednesday morning, I KNEW I had to get him to our provider immediately or urgent care. It was the strangest thing to me that he was only asking for sugary drinks, he wasn’t interested in eating anything and then began to refuse water.
I have found myself in this place where past experiences have caused me to have a mistrust in medical professionals, however, this time I am so grateful that his doctor recognized his signs immediately and because of her quick response we were able to quickly rush home to gather a few things and I drove off to the Children’s Emergency room.
Our son, just shy of his fifth birthday was quickly diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes which meant a lifelong dependency on insulin.
Our son and first born daughter were both born via cesarian and to date this hospital stay was the most traumatic as a mother because I saw fear in my child’s eyes and I can only hope that my best will be enough for him to heal from that experience without too much suffering.
Gratitude cannot express the feelings I have for every single person that was involved in caring for my son in those two days.
On my way to the hospital I made a very specific request for a sign that everything would be okay and I maintained my awareness as I kept looking for that sign. I didn’t receive that sign until after we were released from the hospital and on our first day of this new life journey with T1D but there was not a single second that I did not wholeheartedly believe that God was guiding us through. Fear surrounded me but I couldn’t let it in.
That is where I will leave you today friends. This month God guided me right into fear and brought light into my secrets, my fears, my suffering and my whole life. I walk out of this month once again reborn, qualified because God has deemed me to be the One and I stand a little taller in that knowing.
Thank you for being here, I love you.
