Lullabies

 
I have this thing about singing lullabies to my kids. Maybe it's the fact that my own mom sang them to me when I was growing up. They gave up a lot for me, my parents did. One of the things they gave up was their blossoming careers in Korea. They traded them in for backbreaking blue collar jobs in America. Due to working the 3rd shift, my mom wasn't really there during the nights. Before leaving for work, she would gather my brother and me in her bed and sing us lullabies until we fell asleep. These lullabies served as a lifeline to carry us through the darkest of nights until we met again in the morning.

I've sung countless lullabies to my children in the past six years. And I also let them sleep in our bed, just like my parents did. Yes, I would complain from time to time and NOT appreciate the fact that they frequently managed to migrate into a horizontal position so that a face or a foot would often be in my personal space. But then there were those days when Wisdom whispered in my ear and told me that these years would be the best years of my life. She was right, of course.

We picked up two new lullabies this past month. "Ladybug" was a song that Mike's mom sang to him when he was a child. Gwen fixated on this song and wanted Mike to sing it over and over again. I think it tops her list of lullabies at the moment. And the second song is one that Ava and I had fallen in love with prior to her diagnosis. I discovered it about a month ago and had been playing it in the car when I wanted the girls to fall asleep.

Since the diagnosis, nights have been hard. I'm not strict on bedtime as much anymore because sleep seems so trivial, such a waste of time. So we spend a lot of time talking, and reading, and singing lullabies.

The truth is, it's very hard to be walking this road right now. I don't want to lose my baby. I don't want to suffer. I don't want to have to "be strong." I want to kick and scream and cry. I want this nightmare to be over and my baby's hair to grow back so that she doesn't feel the need to look at the ground every time someone new passes by. I don't want to ponder the "what if's" and to imagine life without her. I want to be reassured that everything is going to be okay, that she'll live to see her hair grow back, and that there will be a happily ever after. I want more than two weeks, two months, two years...I want a lifetime with her.

But all I have right now are these words of comfort:

"May the Lord bless us, and keep us.
 May the Lord smile on us, shine his light upon us.
 May the Lord lift us, turn his face towards us.
 And give us his peace, give us his peace."

I also have the "Ladybug" lyrics but those seem a little less relevant. 

Thank you for your prayers. They are definitely much needed lifelines to us during this time.