I don't want to be afraid to hope too much. Wallace has encouraged me daily that I need to be as wide open to hope as I am in the love I feel for Savannah. But, the truth be told, I'm afraid. I'm so scared most of the time, I can hardly see straight or breathe. My hope and my fear run mostly parallel to one another, so neither one of them wins out for very long over the other. It's constant internal turmoil, and it's horrible. I don't suggest it for anyone...
There are so many reasons for me to feel either one at any given time. And being alone at home, is hardly any way to escape the battle going on inside my head. I'm quite sure, that one of the most paradoxical capabilities of man, for good and bad, is the ability to think. And I have come to realize that diversion is hard to come by, at home alone, all day long.
Relief usually comes in two ways. The first is the happy diversion of having Wallace home with me, to be silly, to hug me, to talk to me. And the second, is actually being in the NICU, touching and talking to our beautiful Savannah. These are the times that I am happiest in the day, but I have so many other hours to struggle with my mind. And, the conflict wears me out completely in the course of a day. I hardly recognize my own face in the mirror, as much as it seems I've aged in the last two weeks.
But... I want to hope, so much more than I want to fear. I want to imagine her here at home with us, waking us up in the middle of the night because she's hungry. I want to worry about how in the world I'm ever going to teach her how to use the toilet. I want to cry as she goes off to her first day at school, smile when she loses her first tooth, laugh as I watch her catch raindrops on her tongue. I want to stay up nights with her when she has a cold, and snuggle with her some night when she crawls into bed with us after a bad dream. I want to be a good mom, and I want to be her best friend as well. I want to hope, for all of these things... But, I don't know anything right now. Nothing is certain, not one thing in my life at all. And, I don't even know if she'll be coming home, for sure. But, I do hope for all of these things.
I don't like spending my days being afraid, but I do love to hope. And when I look into her beautiful blue eyes, the hope finally wins, if only for that moment. And that is how I manage to get out of bed in the morning, and struggle through another day... for the hope that will win me one more day closer to having Savannah home with us, finally, where she belongs.
Posted by lara at April 14, 1999 01:46 PM