As I write this Boo is having the time of her life over at the neighbor’s house.  She was there last night as well, although I kept having anxiety that my kid was overstaying her welcome. I could envision the neighbors getting ready for bed and her standing there not ready to go home quite yet.

I walked over to check on her last night and getting ready to ring the door I saw Boo through the window.  I stood there for a moment and watched her as she shared a seat with my neighbor’s daughter. The other kids cheered her on as she played a game and she just had a look of pure joy on her face. I imagined this is what it would be like to have a large family, what it would be like for Boo to have siblings.

Tonight one of the older girls walked over and asked if Boo would like to come and hang out with their family again.  Boo was so excited she ran straight out the door without even saying goodbye.

Our family has so much more love to give to another child.  I’m praying for wisdom and direction.  God knows what he’s doing.  There is a reason I am on this path.

*****

Last night I was writing about surgery two years ago, going through some medical records.  It’s like being a fly on the wall in the operating room:

The patient was already on the operating table at the Heart and Surgical hospital. We were asked to help with uncontrollable bleeding. The patient was already getting transfusion with blood products as well as packed red blood cells. The multiple packs were then also place back into the abdominal cavity. The abdominal incision was then extended to the supraumbilical area…..

I Googled supraumbilical area.  That means above my belly button.  When I had a c-section with Boo I made sure the incision was low enough to not interfere with a tiny bikini….and then in this report the surgeons were just slicing me wide open, creating a huge upside down cross. The whole bikini thing seems so silly now.

Mr. LBB: Do you ever think about that you almost died?
Me: Sometimes.
Mr. LBB: What would have been your last memory?
Me: Asking for a rubberband for my hair.  The weathered, kind face of the anesthesiologist and telling him “see you on the other side”….

See you on the other side could have been post-surgery or maybe heaven….but now I think it’s that I can never go back to where I was before that surgery and cancer and death.

Boo and I stayed home today and watched movie after movie, one of which was Awakenings.

Boo: I’m crying.
Me: I know, so am I.

I paused the TV to write this down in my journal:

“We’ve got to tell everybody. We’ve got to remind them how good it is…..People have forgotten what life is all about. They’ve forgotten what it’s like to be alive. They need to be reminded about what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life. What I feel is the gift of life. What I feel is the freedom of life. What I feel is the Wonderment of Life.”

I watched the Black Friday madness from afar today.  I couldn’t think of one thing I needed.  Give me my family, my church, my books, a pencil and a composition notebook and I can be perfectly content.  The more I focus beyond myself, the more joy shows up.  Love others. Simple. Sometimes. This is what it is like to be alive.

“The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word “love”, and look on things as if man were the center of them. Man is not the center. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. “Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest “well pleased”.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

P.S. I know I can be exhausting at times.  Imagine if you had to live with me…maybe that’s why Boo is now living at the neighbor’s house.