Post Traumatic Stress Pops up in Weird Ways.

Oh My!

Last night I attended a birthday buddies birthday.  She turned 12 years old.  While some might see me as a mature person exploring the joys of my mid-60's, I did demand extra cherries on my ice cream and a balloon.  It was a lovely evening and great joy can be given to a 12-year-old with a large box of presents.  It was a good reminder of how 12 can be a good time.  The precursor to the rocky years ahead.  The dark flood of hormones, social pressures and the need to dye one's hair the color of a seldom-used off-color in the giant box of crayons.

As I sat there, I realized Mary-Elizabeth was this age when we were trying to figure out what was going on with brain tumors, CT scans, weird blood draws.  It was a time we tried to make normal but there was a cloud of doom hanging over everyone in the family. Then to think that childhood ended and Cancer World embraced us with open arms and great enthusiasm creates a knot the size of Jupiter in my gut. 

I don't often wonder about how things might have been.  I don't often say "Why her?"  I don't often go down the "only if" path.  I sort of put those thoughts into a different place.  A place that collects dust and cobwebs and leftover bits of wrapping paper. It isn't

productive.  It seems silly to look back but then there was a plan at one time.  It was well set.  It was reasonable.  It was logical.  It was pretty normal.  It was busy and hectic and semi-organized.  There was work.  There was a home. There was a future of some certainty. Events to be attended.  Holidays to plan.  People to visit. Christmas cards to send out.  Lists to be made of things to accomplish.  

Oh..... how.....Naive I was. Silly Silly Sally.  What was I thinking?  

It's so foolish of me. Little did I know.  

Well, this moment of reflection will pass.  I will re-focus on what I need to do today and tomorrow.  I will even imagine making some plans for next year.  We will move forward knowing that while the future is never certain, there is at least a near future.  That has to be enough.  I will have to wait until my next life to have a bright confident accomplished daughter with a joyful laugh that just gets to be a child for as long as she might.  I can wait until that next life.  You might ask why I am so sure there is a next life.  Well, when she was 3 we were driving in the country and she piped up and asked: "Mommy, do you remember when we were cows and I was the Mommy and you were the baby?"

The box of sadness and regrets and lost opportunities is re-packed.  It is put deep in the scary basement.  It will sit, unopened until the next moment when something brings it bouncing back from its resting place.