Touching Everything

I realized today how much everything is touched by Emily's diabetes. In some ways I feel like her being diabetic has taken our family and swallowed it whole.

Of course, days go by, and it is pretty much routine, and I just don't let myself think about it . . . it's always there, and it has become a part of the fabric of our lives, but I don't notice it much more than all the other threads, like changing diapers, and folding laundry, helping with homework, driving kids to and from, checking my email, feeding the baby . . .

Then today as I was putting Emily down for her nap, she asked for a song, and as I sang to her, "hush little baby" I stroked her arm. And suddenly I felt so sad I almost cried, because I knew that this was the tiny sweet arm that I have poked a little needle into so many many times in the 7 months since her diagnosis. At that moment it felt like her diabetes was a tangible thing, pressing against me. Not one thread running through, but a shroud dimming all the other colors of my life.

My life. I feel guilty for even thinking of it this way, but sometimes I get so tired of the impact her diabetes has on my life. I know that I should feel more sad for her, but I get tired of all the little changes, and the scheduling, and worrying, and the testing, and the shots and I just don't want to have to worry about it all anymore. I want it to go away. But it will never go away. Even when she moves out of my life and builds a life of her own she will be dealing with diabetes and the ramifications of it. Will I worry about her then, feeling then that death hangs just a little nearer to her than to my other children, or will I be able to let it go, let her husband worry for me, know that she can worry for herself?

I also thought again today about how I feel so passionately about Emily. I feel bound to her in a different way than any of the other kids. The shared pain of inflicting hurt and being hurt has molded us together in a special way. In her novel, The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver talks about how a mother always worries the most about her youngest. But even though Emily isn't my youngest, I think I probably worry about her the most, and that somehow gives her a special spot in my heart.