Best of your todays

From the time Sonzee was a little baby Sam has always said that my happiness directly correlates to how she is doing overall.  When we find ourselves in a time period where we are walking on "Sonzee eggshells" in terms of her response to whatever discomfort she is experiencing it is difficult for my attitude and overall demeanor to not be a mirror.  When she has a bad seizure day, a challenging GI day, or is just not up to much, the reflection in me is clear.  I have become a master at hiding my outward appearances, but a good portion of the time, I do not have the energy to shelve the reality.  On the flip side, when she is having a great day, you might as well call me Burt from Mary Poppins when he is doing the penguin dance.

As a parent its in our nature to want only what is best for our children.  We want them to first and foremost to be happy, once that occurs everything else seems to fall into place.  For those of you who think, wonder, or say "I can't imagine how you do it" when it comes to the situations we are faced with, it is beyond words for me to properly convey what it is like to constantly watch your child go through setback after setback when the starting point isn't even that great, to begin with.  Happiness is unfortunately not as simple as it seems to be with our typical children, and it is exhausting on many levels to try to make things even just tolerable for her. 

There are definitely moments throughout the day, albeit sometimes they flicker similar to that of a lightning bug, where a smile appears across her face.  Sometimes it is actually purposeful versus the ones that are simply a precursor for seizure activity.  Occasionally she will smirk in response to a statement made to her and it is actually voluntary.  There are times that catch us off guard with her reciprocal social participation.  It is during these times and moments that I feel like a charging battery.  Each little event gives me enough energy to continue pushing through.  It's in these little moments that everything is worth it.  Despite finishing our days on average with less of the positive it is in those sparks of positivity that fill my dreams of hope, and leave me saying to her "and may the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows".

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Have it all

These last few weeks have been filled with a lot of steps forward mixed with a couple of punches to the gut.  It is so hard to make it through the punches when they come during a period of positive times that was prayed for but unexpected.  Expectations are just not something I allow myself to have any more.  No matter how many times I have told myself they are as low as low can go, an untamed piece of me gets loose and dreams up something lofty and completely unattainable and then I am left falling much harder, faster, and lower than I should be when the expectation "falls short".  So I do my best to stay away from making any sort of positive predictions. However, when something unexpectedly positive and amazing occurs and I start to believe it really is becoming our reality and then a negative wave is thrown our way, well it just about feels like I have been thrown off a boat tied to an anchor.

If you follow Sonya's Story on facebook then you probably saw that Sonzee was afforded the opportunity to meet Jason Mraz during her most recent hospitalization.  It was one of those surreal moments that you really cannot even process as it is happening.  An experience like that is not just uplifting to the children who are really the reason us parents are able to be there.  It was really hard to sit through his explanations of why he wrote some of the songs as well as listening to him singing in a room of children, who for those 30 minutes had a distraction from whatever they were enduring, without tears welling up in my eyes.  Every song will take me back to that moment and no matter where Sonya's story takes us, Jason Mraz is going to be in the back of my mind singing me through it.  

Despite the ups and downs that Sonzee faced throughout December, we saw her experience a type of happiness we have not seen from her in a long time, if really ever.  For two straight weeks, she was majority smiles and smirks.  She was visibly comfortable and she was enjoying her days.  In a more typical Sonzee twist, we saw that happiness stripped away within a moment and it has now been 10 days and it has not fully returned. While we do not know when or if she will get to experience those two weeks of December again, we wish that she may only "know the meaning of the word happiness" and that she will be able to have it all.

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