Greetings From the Trenches,
After a hellacious morning, my three children are inside and I’m hiding outside.
As the doctor lectured me about starting a medical binder for one of my sons, I remembered how I had forgotten his morning medication. As she told me to consider new care for my other son, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time he spent a full week in school due to illness. As my mouth rehashed their medical histories, my mind was secretly on an issue my daughter was having at school…wondering if it was real or a concoction of my paranoia and guilt.
I sit in this old, dog-chewed patio chair inhaling indulgent breaths laced with spring’s best jasmine. I hope to feel a bit of a high from the blooms before stepping back into the reality that waits indoors.
I’ve been told these early years are the parenting trenches. Today I felt it. It was dark, scary, and my mind imagined what might rage on the battlefield above.
But as I sat in the old chair, I thought about what might get a soldier through trench warfare. I imagined the only thing he had were the guys next to him and whatever was imprinted on his soul before he left home.
Today was dark, but I found hope in the muddy depths.
Those two boys are more than their diagnoses and are doing just fine. That girl inside is sweet and good. The phone call from my husband breathed life into my weary bones.
And the smell of jasmine reminded me that the same one who dresses spring flowers is the one who holds my hand in the trenches.
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