Objects in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear

Look out your rearview mirror.  What do you see?

I am not talking your year books from high school, or your life novel you've been meaning to write...  your rearview mirror.  Your most recent few weeks.  Mine are filled with some surreal images that give me a heavy heart that quickly, inexplicably shifts to gratitude and joy so completely overwhelming.  My heart spontaneously bursts with joy and I crumble weeping.  Michael will look at me and say "Mommy, why are you sad?  Don't be sad."  But what his sweet little heart doesn't yet understand, is that I am crying because I am so HAPPY.

So, as I gaze at the speeding rearview mirror, I see the images shrinking.  Not fading, shrinking.

The hospital room with fluorescent lighting.
The yellow gowns and face masks of the doctors and nurses where only their eyes tell the truths when they are talking.
The red firetrucks on Michael's pillowcase.

The suitcases spilling over with clothes and artifacts from home.
The Styrofoam containers (boo! to the non-ecofriendly packaging) from our take-out.
The balloons, signs, and cards our loved ones sent.
The beautiful Chicago skyline out of our 9West window where so many babies, kids, and teenagers spend time at Children's Memorial Hospital.

The goofy hospital clowns freaking out the kids and adults alike.
The kind nurse to show us how to deliver IVs to Michael in the warm glow of our comfortable family room.
The syringes with the white caps.  The syringes with the blue caps.
The round medicine ball attached to Michael every 8 hours...  for 3 weeks.


They will all but disappear soon when I blink.  Or when I am busy.  Or when I become distracted.  For now they linger, as I count down the IV's left to do until Wedsnesday at 4 pm.  I don't know if I want these images to go away and never come back or if I have lived and learned a lifetime in just weeks.

I have learned how truly blessed I am.  When I hang my head at grace on Thursday, I will be thinking about all those images in my rearview mirror.  And the other truths that will be in my heart.

I know of families and children who will be spending Thanksgiving in the hospital.
I know of a young woman who is in the ICU having just received her gifted new set of lungs to help her take a full, satisfying breath.
I know of families who are gathering for the first Thanksgiving since losing a child.
I know of those who are fighting the sick of heart, sick of mind, and sick of body.

But we are here together.  Each day with a new view in that mirror and each mile further along on our journey.

While I am thankful for all the wonders and love we have experienced in the recent weeks, and all the BIG grown-up things, I am sure for Michael it will be much simpler.  Much sweeter.  He will be most thankful for the PICC being removed on the Eve of Thanksgiving.  And to be able to go back on being, well, a kid.

He has been such a good boy, but he does firmly plant the question every day.  When is my PICC coming out?  I had promised him last week.  When is my cough going to go away?  I have to tell him 'soon', because that's what I am hoping.  And these continue to be the images flying by my mirror these days.  But not the only ones.

Michael to Dylan yesterday morning, "Punch me, punch me right in the face, Dylan."  And Dylan's response in his limited 22-month vocabulary, "FIGHT!"

This told me things had resumed our normalcy.  We will move on to the next mile down on the life highway.  And soon the images will disappear, but we are all the wiser knowing where the road has taken us.

And I am most thankful that my boys are fighters.