Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Let's hear it for the boy...

I was going to title this post "My Second Husband", but then thought better of it. I have to say that since my sweet son was born, my sweet husband magnified his already awesome traits. Having a baby makes for a different life for us, for sure, but I never thought it would improve our personalities so much. Or maybe personality isn't the word... Um... you'll give me a word, won't you? The thing is, Liam has made us better people. Especially Ian. He has become a more devoted husband and a really cute dad. His perspective has always been very short sighted in my opinion and even though his friends warned him his outlook would change, he never understood it until about 5 months ago. We have had this conversation a few times since Liam's birth... Why do we get along so well these days? Why do we seem so much happier? Why are things just falling into place for us? Because Liam came into our lives, our home, our schedules... this little person impacted our married life together like nothing else could. When I reflect like this (and I should more often) I feel so grateful that I know a broader perspective because of my religion. We are really blessed beyond measure...

I was reading a blog site that I like to review about once a week. It's a doctor who reports his life every few days and shares experiences he has in the hospital with his patients. Today he mentioned a little boy only 5 years old that lost his sight because of surgery gone bad. Here is the quote from his blog:
"I have this 5 year old with a humongous sellar tumour. Surgery last week; they were unable to save the pituitary stalk, nor the optic nerve. He's blind now. Having trouble adapting; crying in bed, whining, screaming. I don't blame him. A lifetime of visual stimuli, all gone. At so young an age. He'll never see the colours of a rainbow. His dog's face. People. The gaze of his wife. His baby. Trees. The ocean. Instead, total darkness."
This just made me want to cry in sadness for this boy and all the blind people out there... and then it made me want to cry for joy that my son is normal and we are so fortunate he has the strength and abilities that he has. I should be grateful at all times for this, but it's so easy to take what we deam "simple" or "normal" for granted. I just can't imagine watching Liam suffer on any level even close to what this 5 year old is facing this week. I don't know who this child is, but he is in my prayers. What an adjustment period.

4 comments:

Katie said...

Your personalities haven't changed, but your attitudes and perspectives have, and that is one of the many blessings of parenthood. There's so much to be grateful for that too often we take for granted. Prayers from us for the little boy and his family. Perspective is such a hard thing, though. I wrote in my blog a while ago about our biggest challenges being our greatest blessings. That little boy is blind because the doctors were able to get all of his tumor out. In his case, blindness = living. I'm not saying that his life won't be hard or the adjustment will be easy, and I certainly don't expect a five year old to comprehend his circumstances, but I hope his parents realize how lucky they are to be able to teach their son to read braille and not have to pick out a casket.

Gina said...

You are so right and yes, I remember that entry of yours. Thanks for your comments and helping me out with my "loss of words" in this post.

Tori :) said...

Katie- DITTO. DITTO. DITTO. Excellent comment and excellent post Gina.

Angel Baby said...

Wow, Katie has some great perspective...

I clicked to comment, unsure of what I would say to something so horrible, and then (thankfully) read her comment.

On occasion I fear the terrible things that might happen to my daughter and the only thing I know to do it just force them from my mind, I get so scared.

I knew a young boy, 5, who had a glass eye because he had cancer in his eyeball at the age of one. He was one of the coolest kids I ever met... he LOVED that glass eye!