by Rebecca J on 2012-10-15
On Tuesday, William went to work, and I stayed home with the girls. Emily sounded terrible, with lots of sneezing and a scratchy voice. I decided to keep her home from preschool, even though I suspected that she was suffering from allergies. Molly also refused to take her naps, so it couldʼve been a very long, frustrating day.
But I quickly realized that this was a tender mercy from the Lord, to have one more day with my girls where everything was just as it should be. I could be a mom and cuddle them and hold them and feed them and play with them and clean up after them. Since no one knew how my recovery from the implant surgery would go, I realized that it might be a while before I could go back to being a mom and do all the things that moms do. Emily and I headed to the kitchen and made rolls and pumpkin bread. Molly scooted around on the floor, happily for the most part. It was a totally normal day in many regards. As much as I complain about the monotony and routine of normal days, this was a normal day that I was most thankful to have.
Mom showed up in the middle of the afternoon, and Emily just about jumped into her arms. She was so excited to have Grandma stay with us for a few days. She was especially proud to tell Grandma that sheʼd helped to clean the upstairs bathroom so that she and Grandma could share it. (Her favorite part was cleaning the toilet!) The weather was beautiful, so we girls went outside to play in the backyard. Molly was on the picnic blanket with me, and Mom and Emily played in the playscape. I made a giant pot of mediocre soup for dinner (I had not intended for it to be mediocre, but sometimes thatʼs how it goes in the kitchen.) We got the girls off to bed, and as I kissed them good night, I thought, “Everything will be different tomorrow. Remember this moment.”
And as luck would have it, at 8:00 that evening, I had a phone interview for a part-time editing job. (Because who wouldnʼt try to find a job in the midst of life-changing surgery?) William was my transcriptionist, and we were on the phone for almost an hour. One of the things that I hope comes from the implant is that talking on the phone will not be so difficult.
I wrote down in my journal, “Today was such a normal day. How can tomorrow be the day that changes my life?” It was a surreal feeling, one that I had the day before I was married and on the day before my babies were born. It was the same feeling I had driving home from my mother-in-lawʼs funeral. There are all of these people out there in the world having a totally normal day, and there are some people whose lives are about to change forever. Usually, Iʼm the person having a normal day, while someone elseʼs life has changed in an instant. But on Wednesday, I would be the one watching everyone around me having a normal day and thinking, “Did anyone else notice that the world just changed a whole lot?” But life still goes on, one way or another.
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