Healing

I think…I feel like I’m healing. I thought about our old house, the one we brought Olivia home to twelve years ago today. She was so tiny; she’d finally gained back to her birth weight of 5lbs 2oz. She was on monitor that tracked her heart rate and her breathing.

We were all finally under one roof and it was terrifying.

Christmas was right around the corner and while the tree was up (that’s what had me thinking about the old house, I found myself trying to remember where we’d put the tree in that house. I did remember and it brought feelings of happiness instead of sadness or regret, so I’m taking that as a healing moment.) but not a lot of presents were purchased or wrapped.

Alyssa was going to be four in just over a month. She’d ‘helped’ with the tree. See, I hadn’t had a chance to put a lot of ornaments on it that year. I’d put it up, strung the lights and then…it just sat there. So sweet little Lyssie had decorated the tree with her toys that year. She put puzzle pieces on the branches, sat a few tiny stuffed animals on other branches. At the time, I broke my heart. Now…I see it as a chance for a little girl to make the tree her own.

Last weekend we put our tree up. We bought a new tree and it is much smaller than the old one. It’s also prettier and easier to manage. We started putting it up on Saturday afternoon. I got the lights on and we put in a Christmas movie (A Christmas Story) and we dug into the four boxes of Christmas decorations we have collected over the years.

Last year, I didn’t get into all the boxes of ornaments. Chemo and all that entailed just kept me from doing all that would have in the past. I did move furniture the day after chemo and put up the tree because, hello steroids! But once the steroid high moved on, I didn’t have the energy to put all the ornaments on the tree.

Sunday morning found me back at the tree. The girls had done a pretty good job but there were some spots that still needed ornaments. Alyssa looked up at her phone at one point and said, “You’re really the only one who puts real effort into decorating for Christmas. We’d be lost without you.”

It was as if she’d read my mind (or my blog) recently.

I just smiled and said, “I’m glad you have me then.”

She smiled back and went back to her phone.

I am so grateful to be here to do for my family. I’m grateful that Olivia is doing so well, that we came through our NICU experience intact, that while there are scars, they’ve scabbed over through the years and even those Christmas Tree cakes don’t trigger me like they used to do so. I can buy a box with barely a shrug to the significance of them and the season.

We’re all growing around here and that’s a really good thing.