Lead Balloon

I've been collecting Willow Tree angels since I was 15. Back before they were sold in Hallmark and every other store imaginable, this little florist by me sold them. It was one of the few places where you could find them, and I just fell in love. I haven't gotten any new ones in the last year or so, due to budget and Shane never remembering which ones I need, but this little boy with the Hope balloon is one of my favorites. I bought him for myself ages ago and I bought him for Sara Joy on sweet Joel's first birthday.

I love him and his hope balloon, but lately, my balloon has felt a little deflated. Like the helium has all gone out and instead of holding it aloft, I'm just dragging it after me.

I'm trying. I'm really, really trying, but there are so many heartaches with work and I wish I could talk about them, but you know I can't, life, love, everything. The dumbest things hit me and hit me hard, like realizing that for the rest of Tommy's life with me, I'm going to have to write epilepsy on his medical forms. When he starts school, his teachers will get medical info from the nurse stating that he has epilepsy. I drag that little hope balloon behind me with wishes and prayers that he will outgrow them, but how it was burst and drug down a little further when he had another seizure Monday night. As I type this, he's sitting on the floor with shoes on his hands clapping them together and how can I feel anything but hope when he's so healthy, so normal all the time, but. When people ask how he's doing, I never know how to answer, shuffling my feet and words, because of course he's fine when they ask. Of course he's a normal, healthy one year old, but. The seizures and the images I can't get out of my mind, his blue lips, twisted in a silent scream. I hate it. I know that blue lips are normal for his seizures. I know that they don't mean that he isn't breathing, but my heart shuddered on Monday while his little body shook in my arms and thought, nononono, this is wrong, so wrong.

Someone once told me that you can't rank pain. If you're having a bad day, a really bad day, you can't allow yourself to brush it off and say, Oh well, at least I still have a house/job/family, unlike some people. And while you should of course remember to count your blessings, you can't brush off your pain because someone else's pain is worse. I've caught myself doing that, thinking that I have NO RIGHT to be sad or upset at everything, because it could be so much worse. I know this. I do. But in the here and now of my days, I roll the word epilepsy across my brain a million times a day and it makes my heart hurt because of all the I don't knows. Will he outgrow his seizures? Or will he learn someday to tell when he's going to have a seizure? My brain misfires, too, with migraines and sleep paralysis, are his misfires related? Is it my fault? Will he have another seizure tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Never?

When will my heart heal?