We shall overcome

It's been a rough day for me, and it seems like at times like these are when I need to sit down and write again.  I wish I felt the call to write in good times as well anymore, but I guess those times come out in my photography.  It's times like this where it seems like the creative outlet of my photography does not cease the voices in my head and I turn here to give voice to them and release them from my mind.

I started this blog with the purpose of keeping family members up to date with my life.  It was easier to just get things out in the moment than remember them for Christmas letters.  Which I never seem to write.

Little did I know what it would turn out to be.  A chronicle of the lives of 3 amazing children, but really one super hero.

Yesterday was her 8 year check up.  Yesterday was the day she had the awakening that she wasn't like other children.  That she was different.

Yesterday, I sat with my child and held her while she cried.  And asked me why God made her this way.  And if this would ever go away.

She asked me if we were disappointed in her that she struggled to keep her attention where it should be.  She worried that her grandparents would be mad at her.

She talked of things far beyond her 8 years.  And, of course, I bawled with her.  My heart in pieces on the floor.  And the conversation has been at the front of my mind all day.

There is no manual for parenthood.  No book to read to tell you how to deal with these types of conversations.

But I told her, and I told myself of all the things she has overcome.  That I know she can do this too.

I told her of how she was born breathing.  Well before her lungs should have even been developed enough to do so.  Of how she had to learn to eat, and that she showed that she was ready to try well before her gestational age said she should have been.

That she came home before her due date.  Well before her due date.  And how amazing that was.

I told her of how fast she has brought herself up to grade level this year.  Of how smart she was and how proud I was of her hard work.

When you bring a child into this world, you never hope or wish for them to experience challenges.  You want them to have everything that you didn't.  I just hope that I can teach her to love herself for who she is.  Even with all of the challenges she experiences.  That the girl that she is - is so special and unique and someone to be treasured.  And that this won't keep her down.  She has shown her fighting spirit many times over the years, and I know she can do it again.