happy new year

At 4 am this morning I was in Mom and Dad Winchell's "back room," sitting near the hot coal stove to feed Moriah and watching revellers from around the world welcome the New Year. To think that almost six months have gone by since Moriah's birth, to anticipate this year as the year in which she will turn one year old...to make sense of the past and feel hope for the future, these are no small things.

I have had a very hard time in the last few months understanding why so many difficult things have happened to us. Why were we thrust back into the world of Children's Hospital, after "paying our dues" during Orilus' transplant three years ago? Why was Moriah born with a diagnosis that could cause her sickness, complications, and a decreased life span? Why, when I finally had begun to trust that I could, after all, open myself up to the scary world of "baby-hood," were my worst fears realized in a child with special needs? Why was I asked to give up so much--an on-time return from maternity leave, a happy delivery and postpartum recovery, a calm summer at home with my sons, an entire life in Lynn?

So much pain, and in the final analysis, I am finding that analysis is really little help, and no comfort.

Mostly I have passed the last months stringing one hour after another, like an amateur jewelry maker unsure if the finished piece will ever be finished, or for that matter, a piece at all. In the process, we have made many sudden and instincitve decisions. We knew we needed to retreat to a place of healing, and made a strange pilgrimage to Jason's parent's basement and pull-out couch. (Our house in Lynn finally closed this past week!). Others might marvel that cramped quarters could bring anything other than frustration, but we have found joy here. A new rhythm is emerging, one that for me includes sending the boys off to a school that delights them, moving Moriah's body in ways I've been told will improve her muscle tone, returning to workouts at a local YMCA, and looking for part-time work for the spring. Rhythms, and beaded time, passing. And my favorite Christmas gift this year--a necklace my dear friend Val gave me with a South African symbol that means "hope"--has been both an ironic mocking ("Hope in all of THIS?! You've got to be kidding?!") and a quiet strength ("Next hour, next day. Begin again.").

And mostly, I find that hope returns, even after days when I am sure it does not exist anymore, cannot possibly exist. Moriah turns over on her own (as she did twice yesterday). Jackson and Orilus take off on their bicycles for the town skating pond. Jason grabs me in a bear hug after his long commute. Dad Winchell discusses a favorite book of mine and pours my coffee. Mom Winchell tells me a story for her own motherhood that encourages me to pray and to wait. The doctor tells me that Moriah is thriving, and Orilus and Jackson's teachers tell me the same. And I feel my own heart yearn to thrive, yearn to break free of all the sadness, and sometimes, it does just that, and I am full of gratitude, and rejoice.

Two weeks ago in church my husband was surprised when an elderly woman he knew from his childhood approached me with a great big hug, tears in her eyes, and a specific word of encouragement. I can't tell you how comforting it is even to be called by name, now that I live in a town where I have yet to make good friends and am so little known. But what was more comforting was to know that her words were true, and tested, having survived her own heartache and truly awful suffering. "There is hope," she said. And I realized how sweet these words were, coming from someone who had weathered so much. And how really, they were some of the few words I trusted in these last months. And I thought, someday, I want to be that woman, the one who suffers and hopes. The one who can be trusted, because she has survived, and gone on to thrive. The one who counts her scars, knows they are not as deep as they could have been, and heals the hurt in others by virtue of her own weakness and imperfection.

Someone who can welcome a New Year. Welcome it for its scary unknowns, and certain joys. And understand that the welcoming is a radical act, a faith. A hope.