Blooming a new perspective.

Saturday L came running into the house. Door flung open, feet barely touching the ground...in his hand, a small branch that had fallen from our tree in the front yard. He was excited to show me his discovery. He lifted the branch up to my eyes and pointed to the flowers. The most beautiful flowers. My husband followed behind me in awe, saying that he noticed after closer inspection that the tree was full of these flowers. They are practically hidden to the naked eye unless you put effort into finding them. L quickly grabbed a cup and filled it with water to preserve the precious gift he was bestowing upon me. (This picture, does them no justice.)



I ran out to the tree, and at first glance didn't see any of these flowers.



It took some adjusting of the eyes to get a glimpse of them nestled up in boughs of the tree.



It was quite a discovery for our family. For the rest of the day, every time we passed the flowers on the kitchen counter we would shake our head with wonder.

Fast forward to that evening. My sister in law dropped off the boys after our date night. They ran into the house like a ball of thunder, hugging my neck and kissing us goodnight.

L slipped into the living room and completed his nightly ritual. He closes all the blinds in the front of the house every night before bed. He ran in and hugged me again, gave me a butterfly kiss on the cheek, and ran to his room to get his pj's on.

An hour passed before my husband and I began to close up the house up for the night. Lawton was let out to "do his business," and Ryan headed to the boys' rooms to do the 10:00 check. I went to the front door to make sure it was secure for the night, and then casually looked around the living room.

I could see where L had stepped on the cushions to close the blinds. I saw his shoes laying in the middle of the floor, and his cars in a perfect circle surrounding a group of farm animals.

The most ordinary of evenings, the most ordinary view of our living room, brought the most extraordinary rush of feelings.

All of a sudden I began to cry.

All of a sudden I felt the twang of anger deep in my gut. I don't think my boys burden was ever so clear to me as it was at that moment. At that simple, stupid, nothing moment...I was furious.

"It isn't fair." I mumbled under my breath. I am Ok with all of this, but it is not ok that they are handcuffed to this disease forever. At that moment....everything was turned upside down. I can't remember ever feeling so livid, I'm sure if I was a lioness you would have heard me roar all the way to China. Such deep unconditional love for boys that are so sweet and smart, and fun...yet such anger for the lot placed before them in life.

For a moment, my throat was tight, as a scream sat in my tonsils waiting to be released.

I walked into the kitchen to get some water, tears streaming down my face...

And then I saw the flowers.

The image calmed me. I looked at the delicate petals and took a minute to reflect.

Maybe, just maybe...I was looking at this all wrong.

Maybe, I thought...their lives are like our tree.

Maybe I needed to look closer to see the beauty that lay before them.

I have to believe that there is a purpose to this madness.

I have to believe that in between the lines...or the branches of this diabetic life, good and beautiful things lie in wait for my boys.

I have to believe that diabetes is going to be an asset...that it is going to mold them into compassionate, empathetic, amazing human beings. That they are going to be stronger because of the experiences they will have...BECAUSE of this disease.

I have to believe all this or otherwise, I would probably explode from a lethal cocktail of fear and anger.

Looking at the flower, I realized I was looking at the "tree" so to speak, of our diabetic life, and not the fruits of the journey.

When you look at the big picture, sometimes you miss the details.



Like coal that is put under the pressure of the refiners fire, a diamond will emerge from their story.

There has to be good that will come of this.

There just has to be.