Fear and Gratitude

Fear and gratitude. I’m finding they go hand in hand when it comes to being a parent. I mentioned in my last post how everything we suffer as a parent is worth it. A few months ago, I learned that the oldest daughter of a friend of mine from high school, was diagnosed with Leukemia. She’s 3 years old. The same age as L. Cancer. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around it.

Now, it often occurs to me, that my children could be taken away in an instant. I know it happens all the time. But I'm still trying to learn how to live my life and live with the fear. The fear does fade into the background of my mind getting covered by the monotony of my everyday life, but it doesn’t ever seem to go away. I watch E sleep with her legs tucked beneath her, her round, little bottom up in the air, her cheeks rosy and pink — or L running and jumping and leaping and laughing, so full of spirit, so full of life. Those are the moments I’m so overcome by the intensity of the love tangled with the fear of loss. The possibility of a loss so incomprehensible it’s enough to drive any parent to the edge. Instead of giving into the fear, of obsessing over things I have absolutely no control over, I try to live in the moment, to count my blessings, to truly appreciate how unbelievably lucky I am to have such healthy children. Am I just being neurotic or is this just part of being a parent?

This is a rhetorical question by the way, I’m fully aware of how neurotic I am.