Cherish

As of today William has been in my arms longer than it took my body to develop him. In two months we will celebrate his first birthday. 

While I could go on and on about how amazing he is, how everyone who meets him thinks he's so sweet and special, how happy he is all the time, or how well he sleeps (thank God!), I can't help but focus more on the time that has passed since his birth. 

When I look back on the months since he was born the word that comes to mind is "cherish." 

Almost a year has passed and I can admit that though it does fly by in the ways that people warn, it also lingers if you let it. 

My mom's illness has awarded me the unique opportunity of cherishing every single moment-- staying longer, watching closer, holding tighter, feeling deeper... 

I have seen beauty in the bleakest places and miracles where logic ceased. 

And in this time, in these moments, with these people, I have seen the very best that life has to offer. The most genuine, the most committed, the strongest, the most faithful, and by far the most loving. 

I have been told by every doctor that with a diagnosis like my mom's, every single day should be cherished and I know they're right. 

I've been forced to celebrate every "first" with William as a "last" with my mom. His birthday will be another example of that. 

The emotional tug-of-war in those moments cannot be described, only felt, and I have learned to dance with joy and grief in the same steps that leave me quite literally breathless with an actual ache in my chest.

But I am thankful to learn from it and I am thankful for a God who gives so abundantly that he has allowed me to so purposefully connect this first and last year of his divine orchestration. 

And in these beginnings and endings I am even more sure that not one thing is a coincidence. 

I know that William and his beautiful, calm soul were sent to heal us and to remind us of God's abundance. 

I know that my mom's illness has taught me to live in each and every moment, to embrace it, and to cherish it in a way that I never could have without this looming darkness. 

I know that my mom's unexplainable improvements have come so that we may know that even when science has exhausted itself, God hasn't, and the strength of the human spirit is far greater than the most grim circumstances. 

I have seen the truest colors of the ones I love most and am constantly amazed at how beautiful they are. 

We have laughed and we have cried, we have danced and we have celebrated, we have lived more in these last 10 months than ever before... because we were forced to live in moments-- moments that have often felt stolen, and we have rejoiced in each and every new one we've had. 

We have spoken words of affirmation and the phrase "I love you" has echoed thousands of times off of our walls and over our phones. 

And what a gift that is-- to feel every single day for the right reasons, to be amazed that almost a year has gone by, but to feel confident that it's been cherished the way it deserved to be. 

When all of this began Chuck said to me, "We're all dying baby, some of us are just doing it faster. The day you let yourself believe you aren't is the day you've really lost." 

And he was right. I know that now. 

We can all say that we live every single day to the fullest but I will always look at my mom in thanksgiving for this gift of clarity and the ability to prove its importance... even at the expense of her own life. 

And while I watch beautifully painful days come full circle with William and my mom, I am all the more thankful that these 10 months later I've had so much to cherish.