During a discussion today with a friend I had a realization. Our friend is going through a very difficult time medically and he was in the hospital at the same time we were having babies. He said it was a bright spot to him knowing our babies were being born, happiness, and beauty was going on during his trial.
I reflected back to the beginning during one of the first of Larkin’s many hospitalizations. We were on the postpartum floor and I was up pacing the hallways at 3 a.m. Watching other journeys around me, joy for the most part and yet there we were amongst the happiness dealing with tremendous grief, worry, life changing health issues, and yet even joy was with us.
I watched out the window of Carle hospital as the helicopter came and went which makes one wonder who is on it and are they coming or going to yet another level of trauma care. Through my window I watched a man buy a soda out of a machine 2 floors down and I worried for a moment if he should be drinking caffeine as it would keep him as awake as I was – and then thinking geeze Aim you are up and moving because you are worried, so he probably is as well.
Hospitals are interesting places because beauty walks along side pain.
Our friend was kept in our prayers and thoughts from our floor and we were kept updated via another friend as to how he was doing.
Having the twins was a beautiful moment tinged only with the pain of not being able to share it with my children. Larkin continues to not understand or notice the babies and I am coming to grips that she will do this on Larkin time and in Larkin’s way. Fourteen asked me the other day when Erin and Brin would stop sleeping so much and I laughed and told him that there would come a day when he would wish they were sleeping and not bothering him.
We came home to find Larkin has indeed mastered walking. When I am sitting in the bedroom nursing I catch sight of her walking past the bedroom door as she heads from one play area to another and it is as if an apparition has walked by. Andy and I still laugh and are amazed to watch her cruise right on by as if she has been doing this for years. There was a time when I felt so defeated that she may never master this milestone. Took over 4 years but we are there!!
Beauty and pain walk hand in hand for everyone. Life hands us so many different pieces to the puzzle that until we sit down and really take a long hard look at it – we can miss the perfect synchronicity of it. The perfection of chocolate with red wine, sweets with the bitter.
Larkin walking although she has a nasty case of pink eye and a bad cold, babies coming home healthy, a friend battling a war for his health. The twisted road that I have begged and cried for to stop the painful jerks and turns gives me peace at the same time. I no longer take anything for granted, changed my lifestyle to embrace only what is important, met God on His terms and quit trying to control it all – and that is something I work on every day. Beauty walking with pain teaches us that from the depths of despair can come the most beautiful pieces to our lives.
My purple sky is so very beautiful but only because I learned to embrace the color of grief. Walking hand in hand with grief/pain offers us the open door of truly understanding what is beautiful on this wondrous twisted road of life lessons and having our eyes washed clean. Beauty is something so different to me and frankly to most of my friends and those who are on this road with us.
Rolling, crawling, walking, smiles, eye contact, when a connection of cause/effect happens, hugs and basic affection, all things that have been given to us and taken away more than once. They never lose their beauty because of the pain that bore them. Might sound strange to some but I find comfort in the rawness of moment.
Beauty walking alongside pain makes us all appreciate the flavor of life to its true depths. Red wine and a piece of dark chocolate isn’t a bad second 🙂