The secrets behind the highlight reel.

I often get told “I don’t know how you do it” or “you are so strong”. The reality is I don’t have a choice. I have to be strong.

It’s not an option for me to break down because it takes too long to put myself back together. Trust me I know.

Truth is you would be strong too, you just don’t know it.

Nobody wants to be in a position where your options are between what’s bad and what’s worse. Especially when those decisions directly effect your child and their quality of life. But when your pushed into the arena you are gonna fight.

Yes, I have faith and that helps get me through, but I am only human. I get angry so angry. I get mad, I get frustrated. I have cried out to God only to be met with what feels like deafening silence. I have yelled at God and unleashed all my sadness and anger on him. I have begged and pleaded until there were no more tears to cry.

My head knows that God loves her more than me. That he also only wants what is good. My head knows that we live in a broken world and sometimes our children carry the brunt of that. My head knows that God has a plan. It’s my heart that sometimes doesn’t know. It’s my heart that needs reminding. It’s my heart that sometimes just can’t take it anymore.

You see, I am guilty of only showing my highlight reel. Where I appear to be strong and fighting on. What you don’t see, are the moments where I’m not. Where I am crying in the shower so my little girl won’t know just how bad it is. Where I cry in the car because I’ve just left another meeting that leaves her future and abilities up in the air. Where no one can tell me what her future will be, if she will get to have a future. You don’t see the hours of research I put in, the pages of questions I have wrote so that maybe the next time we will get a little bit of good news. You don’t see the heated talks with your spouse about treatment plans and how all the emotion spills into the conversations and you know it’s neither of yours fault, but you have no where else to throw that emotion around.

You have never had to make peace with the fact that everyday you get with your child is a blessing. A bonus day that you shouldn’t be getting, that you might not get again.

You have never had to try so hard to keep your child’s life as normal as possible yet still explain why they are different.

You have never been so broken that it took months to heal and even though you have healed the scar is so fresh, just one wrong move and it re opens just as bad as the first day.

So being strong isn’t an option. It’s survival. You would do the same.

After all we never really know what we are made of until we are put to the test.

It’s hard. It’s so freakin hard. And one day I’ll let myself fall apart again just to feel the relief. To feel the stress physically leave my body.

I know that when I fall apart I have a faith and family that will see me through. I also know that while I am here “being strong” that, that same faith and family are here. Because it’s really them that helps keep me strong.

I’ll keep being strong and you will keep saying “I don’t know how you do it”. Well this is how. Now you know.