November Challenge

Three years ago, we were into month 5 of Addie's NICU stay, and we were all exhausted.  The day in, day out life & death struggle was wearing my heart thin. ..It would have been so easy to be pessimistic, depressed, angry (insert any negative adjective you can think of) after the hardest 5 - 6 months of our life.  Addie had just finished two major surgeries, and she was just off of the vent for the third and last time going into November that year.  We were cautiously optimistic that we were in the home stretch, but actually going home still felt like a foreign concept at this point.  

As I updated Addie's status on Facebook and Blogger, I couldn't help but notice this new campaign on Facebook. ..people were celebrating a month of thankfulness by posting one thing they were thankful for each day in November.  I don't know how many dark, ugly places you've been in your own mind, but I had already learned from our NICU stay to focus on the positive, cling to it, memorize it, because you never know when things could get worse AND because even when things are at their ugliest, there is always, always something (however tiny) to be thankful for. ..sometimes it was simply to be thankful that things couldn't possibly be any worse five minutes from now or that we had gone half an hour without a catastrophe.  I knew that by simply surviving 5 months, Addie was one of the lucky ones.  Our path may have been harder than a lot of people we saw in the unit during that time, but we also saw no less than 5 families mourn the loss of their sweet baby(ies).  So, I wanted to focus on the positive and wanted to give this month of thankfulness a shot.  

So, I struck out on posting one thing I was thankful for each day as a way to celebrate our survival quite honestly and as a way to express the outpouring of gratitude I felt for everyone who had done something to help us.  There is nothing more humbling than to be helped by every single person you know, to be supported by strangers, and to be given so much more than we can ever repay.. On top of that, we had just witnessed a lifetime of miracles take place in our daughter's life, and she didn't even weigh 5 pounds yet.  I got to the point that I genuinely looked forward to each post.  Yes, it's Facebook and my post on social media is the tiniest blip of a blip in cyber space.  Minuscule and meaningless, but it was cathartic and actually cheered me up.  The more I focused on what "thankful" post I would post the next day, the more things I found to be thankful for. ..and not just little things like it was barbecue day in the cafeteria - although I also learned that the little things are still the big things and make life brighter - but big, HUGE life changing things to be thankful for.. . I kept up the posts for the entire month, even after Addie came home (at last!) in mid-November.  It was addictive, and I was actually sad that November had to end. 

Each year now, I have posted my month of thankfulness, and each year it has blessed my soul.  Each year fewer people are doing it - social media moves on, life is busy, etc, and that's ok.  I'm sure my posts are just clogging up someone else' timeline. ..but it still lifts me up and cheers me on even though our life is much, much different than it was 3 years ago.  I guess part of my hope back then and even now is that by seeing how much I have to be thankful for, someone else will stop and think of what all they have to be thankful for and will in turn be blessed by even pausing for a moment.  Our life doesn't look much like most of our friends.  We don't get to get out much.  We have to be crazy careful about the tiniest illnesses around Addie and ourselves because even now we've spent more illnesses admitted to the hospital than not.  Our days revolve around therapies, exercises and eating practice.  We don't see our friends or family nearly as much as we would like.  I'm not complaining; I'm just saying that our life is considered "different" than most.  My hope is that someone who knows how "different" our life is will see how much I have to be thankful for and realize how rich and full their own life is. 

My challenge to you all is to do 30 days of thankfulness and see if you're not blessed by it.  You don't have to post on social media or even tell anyone else, but you do have to write it down somewhere.  Writing it down makes it a very conscience, purposeful act, one you can't be multitasking through.  I'm not asking you to pray or to start shouting your gratitude from the rooftops. …but I think if you will reflect on your blessings and try to pick just one for each day you will want to start shouting it from the rooftops, or at least maybe start smiling a little bit more.  Hidden blessings surround our lives. ..sometimes we just need to pause for a couple of minutes to see them. 

Happy November!!

PS  Today, I am thankful for you all. ..the crazy few who continue to follow our journey, pray for us, and read to the bottom of my ramblings. ..even if I know you're really just hoping I will close with a picture of Addie!  And, for you, I will do just that. ..

This girl likes ice cream!!! 

Sweetest Minnie Mouse, ever!