Friday, July 2, 2010

Day 155: Healing a Mother's Heart

I had a couple big Joyful Moments today.

One was a visit from some old family friends. My family lived near their family in three different states. They have two daughters (one just older than me, one just younger) and a son. And they are all just wonderful and fabulous and I love them. So, although it was a very brief visit, it was definitely a Joyful Moment to reconnect and introduce them to Baby B.

And preparing for their visit provided me with another, much needed, Joyful Moment.

Sweet P is constantly writing and drawing. If she finds any sort of writing utensil, she immediately find paper and begins marking. So, yesterday when she asked me to help her spell "friend", I thought nothing of it.

I've mentioned before that Sweet P is very much a Daddy's girl. Lately our relationship has become a little strained. The treatment for her condition is a hormone implant and as her body learns to adjust to it, it's made her very hormonal. Like a thirteen year old.

Suddenly I can't do anything right and I'm to blame for everything. She's defiant and sometimes just plain mean. If you know Sweet P you know this is completely out of character for her. She's normally very sweet and obedient. It's been very difficult for me to not take this behavior shift personal. It's been heart breaking and devastating at times.

This morning as I was straightening our house so I wouldn't be embarrassed when taking our friends on a tour of it, I came across one of Sweet P's pieces of paper. I was about to put it in the recycling pile (it's not that I don't value her work, it's just that there is so much it's difficult to keep it from taking over the house), but then I stopped to look at it. It had a picture of two people on it and at the top said, "To Mom". Then at the bottom it said, "My friend".

Now I have tears in my eyes and I'm struggling to find the words to describe how much my heart needed that little scrap of paper. And what a beautiful Joyful Moment that was for me.

Wishing you all Joyful Moments with the power to move you.

1 comment:

Linda said...

This is a very tender experience you shared. It reminded me of some I had when my kids were young. And made me remember how wonderful those moments feel.

This was a hard day - once again we lost out on an offer to buy a home and this one was the first home we really fell in love with. In spite of that, we feel very peaceful about the experience and I feel joy and gratitude for the assurance that we will find a home and it will be just right for us.