My Babies

My Babies

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Gratitude Check

Last night I got the pleasure of doing a photo shoot of a family.  Mostly just their boy.  His grandmother is a dear friend of my mothers and she wanted some photos of her only grandchild.  Some of him playing, running around her yard and some with her.  You see....his time is short.  He was born seven years ago with devastating birth deformities.  His heart was outside of his body.  He has club feet.  He is very small and elfish in height and appearance.  But after over forty surgeries he is just amazing.  He loves running and swinging and just being a kid.  He cannot go to public or private school because his immune system is very poor.  He has speech issues and he also requires oxygen on occasion due to poor pulmonary function.  But he absolutely lights up his Mam-maws world.  She told me she knew that one day all she would have would be photographs.  To touch and kiss and ponder over.  Now this young, precious baby will one day walk with Jesus....whole.  Healed.  Unbroken.  But for now....he is here.  Broken and in need of healing.  His mom and dad know that their son will never see adulthood.  Never play baseball, football or run track.  He won't get grounded for speeding tickets or wrecking the car or breaking curfew.  He won't get married, give them grandchildren or even have his first date.  No proms, no graduations, no field trips.....no new lunch box every single school year.  His mama told me last night, "I am just so grateful for each day....I just don't worry about tomorrow."  She is a pediatric nurse by career.  She has stopped working to care for her son because his doctors have said they can do all they can do for him.  She knows that and is now the caretaker.  Blood pressure checks.  Medicine routines.  Getting up many times a night for oxygen level checks.  All the like.  Hard stuff, people.  Very hard.  When I got home and started editing his photos.  I smiled.  Here was a little boy in a red Superman cape, hands on hips.....the picture of real bravery.  How grateful I am that my life is not this hard.  I am on my way to watch my grandbaby run up and down a soccer field.  Sure it is cool and kinda rainy today....but so what.  I have a jacket and I will dry.  Gratitude is often taken for granted.  Do I daily voice that I am just grateful that my grandchildren can go for weeks without one single crisis?  That my kids can?  That I can?  Sure, I have problems but in the big picture....they are nothing.  When you watch the struggle of emotions on peoples faces when their life is hard.  And I mean hard, not just a difficult season but a life that is hard.  It is so humbling.  I never kissed my child goodbye and closed the lid on a coffin I never thought I would buy and place that child in the earth.  To hear the ticking of that awful "death watch".  Know I would one day be reunited with that child in heaven would be a comfort but....on this broken world we have broken hearts that ache almost unbearably.  Grace was seen in motion right before my eyes last night.  Watching his parents and mam-maw laugh and cut up with him.  Fuss at him when he got rowdy, grace just flowed to exude a life of normalcy.  Photos of hugs.  Blowing bubbles.  Picking flowers and playing cape crusader.  I am just so grateful.

No comments: