I may sound crazy but I absolutely love road trips. I spent my adolescence driving to rodeos around the country and I took my oldest son his first road trip when he was 3 months old. There is just something special about seeing the country between vacation destinations. My husband and I have three kids now (5, 7 & 10)…
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.”
There is a misconception in the outside world (ie: everyone not living with a person who has epilepsy) that as long as a person is not actively having seizures, all is well. That may be the case for some families üydealing with less severe forms of the disorder but epilepsy is a constant presence for many people, even when…
