Snow, snow and more snow!

!

This first snowfall a couple of months ago looks almost silly at this point!

I wrote this a few weeks ago but only got around posting today...

Today the snow fell all day, probably 6- 9 inches. It has been a snowy, cold winter so far but it's not bothering me one bit. Usually I complain a lot about being cold, about the snow, about winter, a California girl thru and thru, I always talk about how pleasant California weather is. But not this year, not even when it has been messy or inconvenient. Today, when I woke up to a snow day and ...no school, I went about my day, writing, paying bills, entertaining the kids, cooking, cleaning up after the boys etc... I found myself wondering out loud why this year, the winter has not bothered me one bit. I have been thinking isn't it odd I think how pretty it all is, how the cold is really not that big a deal. And then it hit me. 

Luke in the hospital for his second transplant surgery.

For the last five years, I have spent literally every winter and spring and summer in a hospital in Toronto or in New York with my one or more of m children having surgery. But the winters are the worst by far. The cold, dark walks between the hospital and the hotel where I would escape just for 30 mins to change clothes, grab a shower, shed a tears in private.

I have nursed them, changed their dressings, answered their questions, restricted their physical activity, waited to see if transplants worked, celebrated when they did and despaired when one failed. I have worried, I have been angry. I have learned what it meant to literally be blind with exhaustion and sick with fear. I have cursed the heavens and I have thanked God for my husband.

And so today on a beautiful wintery day, I am grateful. Sooo, soo grateful and lucky. This year we have no surgery scheduled (fingers crossed). How wonderful just to be. When it snows a lot, it is oh so quiet. Quiet and beautiful and peaceful.

january 2009-- zack transplant surgery

april 2009 -- zack transplant surgery

feb 2010 -- luke transplant surgery

july -- 2010 -- luke transplant surgery

jan 2011 -- luke hearing implants

feb. 2011 transplant surgery -- griffin del

june 2011 transplant surgery -- griffin del

april- 2012 -- luke implant repair

june 2013 -- luke tendon transplant and griffin del transplant repair (same day)