thankful
I am thankful every day for what I’ve been blessed with in my life. I don’t always realize or think about it, especially when I’m having an off day though. Last Friday was my daughter’s very first assembly at school. I was very thankful and it was that event that made me think I wanted to blog about it. About being thankful.
Let me rewind briefly. This blog is mostly to be about the every day family life we live but I have thought about it and obviously I have to combine both of my children into one blog. If you aren’t familiar with our story, I gave birth to my first-born; a son in 2008. Sadly and tragically our son passed away 25 days after he was born. His name is Kenneth. After we lost Kenneth we tried for 4+ years via fertility treatments to conceive another child. During this time I didn’t lose hope that we would have another child; a living child but there were many many times my hopes diminished and it was a lot over the years. I never thought I would hear someone call me “Mommy”. I would be out and hear children call out for Mommy and it would bring me to my knees. Whatever we were doing had to be stopped and I needed out of there immediately. There were times I never thought I’d see my child in a costume at Halloween or hoping to see Santa at Christmas. I didn’t think there would be birthday cakes and I questioned if we’d ever see a child go to school.
Then we had our daughter 5 years + 5 months after we had lost our beloved little boy.
And so I was saying about last Friday …
My Dad comes with me to a lot of events. I usually don’t mention to him how lucky I feel or that I may be feeling emotional because as lucky as I feel to watch my daughter I can’t help but think of my son and wish so badly that he was there too. I mostly keep this kind of stuff to myself. I try to keep focus for my daughter because she deserves the full attention. It’s about her but as Mommy to 2 my heart fills and it aches for both.
Ok yes, last Friday. Getting to it! As my Dad and I drove to the school to attend the Rememberance Day Assembly I felt I needed to mention to him how important this was. The assembly. I said that this was an important day. He questioned why (besides the obvious of the occasion) and I said because I never thought I would attend anything like this for a child of mine. That it meant so much to me to be there. I needed to be thankful for every single moment I can attend something that my child is a part of. He said he hadn’t thought of it that way. That it’s so easy to take it for granted and sometimes you don’t realize how special it is.
After the assembly I started really thinking about the thankfulness I felt that morning and should feel so much more.
Like Halloween of this year. My daughter started Kindergarten and there are so many firsts besides the big one of having a child in school. This Halloween there was a parade at my little girl’s school. I knew before she even set foot in that gym I would lose it. As soon as I saw her walk through the doors my eyes were completely filled with tears. I thanked every single lucky star I could imagine that I was watching my little girl dressed up as Wonder Woman so proudly and shyly walking in the parade.
I also volunteer at the school once a week and also once a week there is a “Family Time” in the morning where you go and spend time with your child and other children in the class for 15 minutes. These are things I never thought I would do. Again, how could I turn down opportunities to see and spend time with my daughter during school. I swear she is the most naughty on the mornings I volunteer and/or go to the “Family Time” and I really want to say bye and quickly drop her off but I always stop and think to myself, you have missed out on this for so many years. Why would you let this be the time to make a point? How could you turn this down and miss this? So I go and when I am there and when I leave I feel so incredibly thankful.
I just felt like I really wanted to write about this. We go on with our every day lives and even though I’ve been through tragedy I take things for granted or I let the busy and the stress get in the way of appreciation. This is my mental note to not forget where it all comes from. To stop and breathe and take it all in.
thankful … cherish the moments
Tiffani
tiffani_warnick@yahoo.com
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