Countdown...

Thanksgiving is coming.  A few years ago, I was blessed enough to sit at my Aunt Mary's table for Thanksgiving pie and coffee with my parents and my cousins and their kids.  Where we once spent every Black Friday at Nana's house eating turkey leftovers, being able to get even part of our family together now is rare and precious.  We laughed and told stories, remembered good times.  I wonder what Thanksgiving will look like for my boys.  I don't know if Uncle Craig will make it in from Russia every now and then, or if talk will center on the Thanksgiving that FuXia was in serial casts or the one we celebrated at the Ronald McDonald House in between his and YoYo's surgeries.

Our next visit to Philadelphia looms near.  Last night I shopped for snap pants to accommodate the new brace for FuXia's leg, and I found myself buying suncatcher and melty-peg ornament kits for the sake of having something normal for the boys.  A little kid was having a meltdown at one store, and I nearly joined him, thinking, "I know, buddy, you're so right!"

FuXia had his teeth cleaned.  We had to address that this week so his white cell counts would be normal enough to proceed with surgery next week.  His dentist talked with me about time he spent in the Middle East, and I reminisced about our all-too-brief time in Iraq--it seems like another lifetime.  He asked how we came to the place of decision where we changed from wanting to stay in Iraq, working with coed schools and refugees, to zeroing in on one child and starting our own family. I told him of the time when we hurtled along rutted roads with an AK-47 bouncing around under the passenger seat and Kurdi folk tunes blaring, when I saw herd after herd of nondescript sheep across the countryside, guarded only by dogs or donkeys.  

"Why would anyone look for a lost sheep there?  If you lost one, thank God that you only lost one, and move the others to safety," I recalled to the dentist.  "But the parable sends the shepherd after that one, even at the peril of the rest of the flock.  He doesn't know if the lost one is dead or eaten or findable."  I carried a good enough dose of guilt-mongering to feel selfish for wanting to start a family when there was so much need.  But in that moment, the reminder of the pointless odds of finding one sheep in a desolate landscape proffered me the weirdest peace.  I can't presume to have the final word on interpreting anything in the Bible, but there is so much of human dignity and worth and life affirmation in that story.

We face more change than we know.  FuXia will wear his traction brace for several months, depending on how long his bones take to respond.  We'll stay in Philly fifteen days.  There's a borrowed portable folding wheelchair ramp on our steps now for the new chair we'll bring home with its platform that will keep FuXia's leg raised.  Not sure he'll fit through the hallway or his bedroom door.  Not sure how school will work, or loading him into the van.  I'm worried about the pain he'll endure and the discouragement.  I hope he can hold tightly enough to the gains he's made so far to find hope.  I'm thankful that this is happening as the Christmas season begins--it's his favorite time of year, and he loves to be immersed in making paper chains and presents and drawings and decorations.  Somehow, Valentines Day lacks the same power to distract.

So here we go again.  The recent call memory that reads, "Anesthesia NP, nurse care coordinator, pediatric GI, Anesthesia NP, YoYo's surgery scheduler, YoYo's nurse care, FuXia's coordinator again, pediatrician, pt clinic..."  The list that reads, "Take the dog to the Joneses, stop mail, tune up car, haul the trash..."  Somewhere in there is packing and planning and hopefully, making a way for the boys to feel like kids who have choices and Thanksgiving stories worth remembering.  Stopping at the grocery store two days ago, I laughed at the MOD that I didn't have a life, in reference to my being there so late in the evening.

"You do have a life--those boys--and that's a beautiful life."  I have to agree!