FOUR!

I looked for one picture all day. Dr. Romance found it buried in 2007. It is a picture I never imagined I would publish here. I was afraid of everything the doctors told me for over a year about my four month old baby.

It is the picture of Son2 sedated, hooked up to many wires, monitored in a hospital after the first seizures that lasted 4 months. I met with a specialist doctor every few months, for over a year. She frightened me with all of her "possibilities."

In my hunt for the picture, I found others from the years we lived in Hawaii:

First time on the Big Island

At the top of Haleakala Crater in Maui

He stood up on this boogie board unprompted. I caught it on camera.

Our last night in Hawaii, trying to convince Son 2 to lose the pacifier at Roy's.

I saved that picture of Son2 and the wires. I would look at in now and then on my computer with a heavy heart. I remember the first years of caution, of prayers, and tears in Hawaii. Those were moments I shared with only Dr. Romance. I did not want to think of "possibilities."

When Son2 turned 2 we had just moved to California. His pediatrician told me there were no symptoms. I waited breathlessly for his third birthday. No signs.

And then he turned 4.

I realized that all the fears that once gripped me,
the uncertainties of what Is Not At All,
are No Where to be Found.

He is FOUR!
He speaks well beyond his years.
He befriended a professor who asked him if he was 20.
He runs and jumps and pretends he is Buzz Lightyear or Woody.
His new pediatrician noted he is the most active of my boys.

He is healthy and bright.
He is full of good POSSIBILITY.

We celebrated FOUR with a private showing of Toy Story 3 in a vintage movie theater including his friends.
We celebrated with Grandma flying in from Arizona. This is in the movie theater before the guests arrived.

We celebrated at preschool when I read his favorite book to the class, and when we made hamburger puppets.

 We celebrated Again and Again at a restaurant with cloth napkins and fancy desserts.

And it resonates with me that we celebrated his LIFE.
We celebrated Living.
We celebrated precious, precious breaths....measured breaths.
We counted them, four years long.
We numbered good Grace.
And we gave thanks for his LIFE.