Making Changes

I recently read a beautiful essay about grief and how is changes oneself.  (You can read it here.) I keep rereading it and reflecting on it throughout my day. It has preoccupied my thoughts for a few weeks. Time won't heal all wounds and things won't return to normal, as the cliches want me to believe. Grief changed me.

I want to go back in time to experience Waverly again. I want to brush her hair into thick pigtails. I long to say "I love you" three times as I kiss her on both cheeks and forehead. I want to hold her hand and allow her thumb to pick at my fingers. I miss the weight of her wheelchair in my hands and the feel of her body leaning into mine for support.

Yet I want to take the new me back in time to her. The new me appreciates the subtleness of life. The rising of her chest with each breath and the little snores that would sometimes occur. The fragility of a moment. I want to go back and soak her in. I want to go back and put my phone down, climb into her bed for an extra cuddle, awake early to be there when she opened her eyes.

I have the unique and terrifying prospect of having to grieve the loss of a second child. Oliver will one day succumb to the horrid disease that is Sanfilippo Syndrome. How can I take what I have learned thus far into mothering him? What changes shall I make moving forward?

These are the questions I have been asking myself.