When you tell me that I’m a good mom because I love my kids enough to worry about them, you are wrong. I love my kids with every piece of my being but that doesn’t magically make my struggles disappear. The truth is that love isn’t enough.
Tonight I sat on the couch with my broken little girl and held her while she cried. Tonight we watched a movie and held a puppy while we waited for the grief to subside. Tonight, once again, I told her that it’s OK to hurt.
Today is the two year anniversary of my life as Humpty Dumpty. On December 11, 2013, I stood in a WalMart parking lot and answered the phone call that changed everything. That was the day that I broke.
I recognize that look in your eyes. It’s a mix of terror, despair, confusion and maybe a little bit of hope that this is all just a bad dream. Maybe you are still in the hospital waiting helplessly while the doctors try to stop the seizures. Maybe you are feeling broken having just received your child’s diagnosis. Maybe you are ready to curl into a ball and hide because it all feels so overwhelming. I’ve been there. I’m still there sometimes.
Family and love were foreign concepts for my daughter when I met her. She had been bounced around between unhealthy homes and shelters. She had experienced loss and hunger and absolute fear. She had no reason to suspect when she came here that our home would be any different. Even after our adoption, Alyssa would ask several times each day if I was still her mom. She does that less now but that fear of abandonment still rears its ugly head sometimes when she gets in trouble and she goes back to being the scared little girl who believes no one really wants her. In those moments she occasionally asks if I will still be her mom as if I might disappear while she takes a timeout in the corner. “Always and forever” I tell her. “No matter what you do, we are family and family is forever.”
As I reflect back over the past two years, I remember many times when I felt like I was Moses, alone on a mountain, growing weary of the fight. There were moments though, when people came beside me and helped me bear the load. In small acts of kindness, friends and strangers came along and held our arms up.
Children rarely grow up to be exactly what their parents pictured. Many parents struggle to accept that their kids have chosen different paths. The difference is that parents of special needs children grieve because the different paths were not chosen by our children; they were forced on them.
We never dreamed that epilepsy would invade our world like this but God new it was coming. He was prepared for it even if we weren’t.
We didn’t intend on a special needs adoption. We asked for healthy kids but epilepsy came hard and fast anyway and left our family reeling.
