The True Meaning of Being a Parent

Day 260 – I wrote yesterday about our late night talk, but I can’t get it out of my mind. The true meaning of being a parent. We all think of the wonderful things parenting bring to our life – the joy, the laughter, the warmth… yes, we know the child will cry at night sometimes, and will get sick and we will lose some sleep over it but you don’t really get the full meaning of being a parent until you have a very sick child. I went through this ten months ago. I saw my daughter almost die and being brought back to life by the sure hand of some doctors and nurses and the miracles of modern medicine, and I saw her going through this terrifying experience three times in a matter of hours. I was there with her in the hospital for the next five days, not moving from her bedside for more than an hour a day to drive home, shower and change cloths, I slept in her hospital bed. And yet I didn’t process it all the way until yesterday night.

I see heragain going now through another ordea, all too similarl. It was not as violent as last time, she did not get into shock and medication stopped the reaction, but it brought everything rushing back, and it made her feel so vulnerable, it made her look at her immediate environment as hostile and her body almost as the enemy, as one she cannot trust and has to be on the watch at all times so it will not betray her, will not stab her in the back. And I am her mom and I see all this and there is nothing I can do to help, just be there and listen. The real meaning of being a parent is to see your child go through hell and to know that without even thinking twice you would change places with her, that you will prefer to go through ten times worse in order to prevent her suffering and to be stuck on the sideline – there is nothing in the world I can do to switch places with her. The only thing I can do is to be there and listen and cry deep inside; because we all know this in theory, but until you are faced with such reality you don’t really KNOW that. And here I am today, in the most painful realm of all, getting to know the helplessness of being a parent to a sick child, praying this is as far as it goes.  
                                                                 

What am I thankful for today? I am thankful for the amazing love I experience every moment I am with her. Because this realization also intensify the understanding of how much and how deep and how all-encompassing is my love to her. I am thankful I have her in my life and because of that I am thankful even for every moment of pain, and helplessness, and for all the tears I shed and will shed. I am thankful beyond words for being her mom, would not trade it for anything.