This time of year is so emotional for so many people. It’s a time of reflection, a time for giving thanks for all the good things in your life, and unfortunately, it can be a time of sadness.
These past few days I’ve been stuck in a weird emotional place. A woman I met in September had a stroke and is currently fighting, fighting, fighting for her life in Atlanta. I don’t know her personally at all…just what I’ve read about her on Twitter, on her blog, and the few moments I saw her at the conference. Yet, I’m hurting for her, for her family, for her children. She is an amazing, HILARIOUS woman. I just can’t comprehend this.
Then this morning, I’m reading another post about a young child who is also hurting, sick, wounded and it just breaks my heart. There are so many senseless things in this world. Sometimes it’s just too much.
To avoid the pain, to avoid feeling , sometimes we just tune it out. We tune it out because if we give in to at all, it will consume us and that’s just a pain most of us can’t endure.
But sometimes we give in to the pain….and come out on the other side with a richer experience, with new connections and memories and more love than we thought imaginable.
It is at moments like these where I hug my baby just a little tighter, I kiss my husband just one more time (honey, ONE MORE!) before he walks out the door, and I call my mother even though I just spoke with her yesterday. Life is precious, life is fragile. In the end, there are lots of pieces of your life’s jigsaw puzzle that don’t matter. Friends matter. Family matters. Love matters.
In this time of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for life. I am thankful for the ability to feel. I am thankful for the blessings I’ve been given.
All so true — and I think it's even more true once we become moms. Every time I read about something bad happening to someone, all I can think about is, "What if that were one of my children."