Well, in the past 7 years that little picture of mine and my husband's has been severely rocked. It took us 7 years to get a 3 year degree, an unexpected pregnancy, a difficult health situation when the baby was born, and it goes on. This past Monday, our little fighter had his official last day of physical therapy. I found myself in tears as our dear friend left for the final time. She has been the greatest gift to our family, full of wisdom and advice in a time when all felt unsure. We lived among the questions of development, we fought despair, and we hoped for the best, always trying (sometimes failing miserably) to remember that there were more desperate situations going on in the world. But when it is your little one you are hoping for, it often feels like that is the only world you can see. So PT brought us perspective. She told me stories of what other amazing moms are doing each day, bringing up children with severe special needs, dealing with constant illnesses and hospitalizations. My heart and world were enlarged by her willingness to share. And we made it, we graduated physical therapy. Hooray! What a way to start this adventure of life all over again. It reminds me of the jubilee year that the Isrealites follow in the Bible. Every 7 years debts are forgiven and all is released to begin anew, a start over button. And this is our 7th year, we get our start over button AND we get to keep the two great kids, the degree, and the wonderful community we've found along the way. But what strikes me the most is that I get the feeling that the next 7 years will be less about us and more about digging into the areas we've already come into contact with. I find myself desiring to find a way to stand alongside those moms who are working so hard each day to keep hope alive. I may not be completely free from worrying about the little guy, it's habit forming, but I feel released from worry, I just have to quit it out. That leaves so much open space to think about how to serve other people.
And so here we go, another adventure, another chance to broaden our minds and worlds. While we are fortunate enough to choose to leave a home and be transient for a bit, going from place to place, subject to the whims of Mother Nature, others don't have the choice. There are families living in the wide world, moving constantly, searching for the next spot of rest. Our intentions were never to mimic this life or to delve into it, I can't help but think that we may encounter a small bit of the stress that a transient life can reek on a family. We've already seen our 4 year old take the stress to a whole new level, more tantrums, more clingy behavior. Kids feel the uncertainty of not having a home, they can't look forward to what's coming next or plan ahead to handle the onslaught of emotions. So our job as parents is to plan for that, to empathize, and to love hard. My new phrase for them has been 'home is with us, when we are together, it's not a place, or our stuff, it's our family'. Tomorrow we leave, and we will be challenged in this. I'm looking forward to it, to building memories and a foundation for raising our children amidst and in spite of adversity.
I guess this is my social justice blog. Sometimes empathy comes as we choose to enter situations, sometimes it hits us smack in the forehead throwing us for a loop we never expected, but were glad we encountered. May our loops of the last 7 years not go unnoticed in our hearts, may our jubilee release us into finding jubilee for others, and may our hearts expand into the wide open spaces.
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