walking girl

Waiting is not a passive thing. That's what I always say. And let me tell you, I have done some waiting in my day. None of which has been as longsuffering and heart-breaking as it has been to wait for this day. So today I welcome all the Alleluias! and Cheers! and good vibes because, dear friends, this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad! For today, my firstborn child, at two weeks shy of her third birthday, has started WALKING!

Honestly, there have been times I wondered whether I would ever be able to write this. I have had dreams about Petra walking and woken only to start crying because I doubted whether it would even be possible. Around her first birthday, Petra was barely sitting up on her own. She was doing PT for a few months and I was surprised at how slow things were progressing. By about 14 months, I was crying to her Physical Therapist, asking her to shoot me straight. Do you think there is something seriously wrong? I wondered.

For the next several months we had tests and appointments and a major surgery. Lather, rinse, repeat. A month before her second birthday I went to an outdoor event with my two-under-two immobile girls and cried quietly behind my sunglasses because I felt so, so sad about our reality and the darkness at the end of the tunnel. I hoped and prayed she would be walking by her second birthday, but she wasn't.

Then finally! At 27 months, she started to crawl. At 31 months she took her first steps. This is where it gets a bit confusing because when you have a little one who is taking steps, they are not really walking yet. This awkward phase usually lasts a couple weeks but it has been almost five months for Petra. Just last week I wondered how I would even recognize when she was "walking." On one hand, she does walk proficiently in her walker-- her "rocket"-- and she can take independent steps but on the other hand, she is obviously still not walking on her own. Like I said, its confusing.

Then this morning I walked around the corner and, like a magician's trick, I saw my girl standing in free space and taking steps. Not just steps, though. This was different. And in an instant I just knew. This is what I have waited for. I mean, action-verb waited for with a back-breaking perseverance. My offspring, my light, my Petra girl was walking. Just like that.

"All by myself," she said.

Most babies start walking at around a year-old. Fourteen to 16 months is still normal. People will think their kid is special if it happens earlier but I know my kid is special because she has waited longer and worked harder for this than anyone else I know. She is my hero.

uninvited guest

I mostly don't think about it because that's how I cope but when I do, it blows my mind that my dad has never met my kids. It was one of the things on my mind when he was dying: the thought of bringing children into a world without him in it. We talk about him but those moments of "your Grandpa Pete used to say..." and, "one time your Grandpa Pete..." seem mostly irrelevant, except for the fact that he was everything to me and I am everything to them. 

I love this photo of Dad with my niece, Phoebe. Especially now that my girls are that big (or little). If I squint, I can almost see him with Zoe. He was one of those special, humble souls who believed that having children and making a difference in the life of a child was more important than, well, everything. He would have loved my girls. Mostly, I think, he would have loved seeing me with them. Experiencing what he believed was the greatest thing in life: being a parent. 

Life goes on but grief is an uninvited guest that comes and goes as it pleases. I don't always mind, though. It beckons me to remember, to feel and to share. 

One of the greatest mysteries of God's goodness to me as I grieve is this: Even though my heart has been broken into a thousand, tiny pieces it somehow still works. And maybe even better than it did before.