A year ago this week, my youngest child was admitted to hospital, at 10 weeks old, with congestive heart failure. After four days of living in an institution, watching strangers wake my baby to examine her and take her blood, writing down every time she nursed, weighing every diaper, and absorbing the news that she'd need open-heart surgery within the next month, my craving for home was something I could almost taste. I finally truly understood the meaning of homesickness. The tiles, the concrete, the fluorescent lights, and the noise of nurses coming in and checking Margot's vitals every 3 hours during the night were enough to make me consider tucking her into my shirt and just bolting.
As the apple trees begin to blossom here, I marvel at how life cycles around; a year has passed since the hardest time of my life; the ducks are laying their eggs again, the trees are beginning to flower, and my eyes are drinking in the softness and the green of the nature around me. I had this photo on my camera back then, and it sustained me when I felt like home was something I'd imagined.
When we were discharged on Mother's Day, I could hardly still the butterflies in my belly as we turned the last curve. I felt like Anne Shirley returning to Green Gables! Home. How blessed I am to call this place my home.
Beautiful. You're right. Home is where the *heart* is. xo
ReplyDeleteI think I can imagine that feeling of being home......a sense of safety, normalcy, privacy.....the smell, the sounds, the 'feeling' and the sense of belonging. No one can even imagine the levels of stress invoved in being in the hospial with a sick child unless they have lived it.
ReplyDeleteyes;memories.This journey is good for me also.It seems like a dream and so far away.This is good for you as you can calmly relive all those moments of panic, helplessness, worry,thankfullness and joy. And I see joy every day I'm with your beautiful children.
ReplyDeleteOhhhh, I can so feel that! And we are sooo saving up to come and visit you guys!
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