heart.

 i changed her diaper, and blew raspberries on her belly, legs, neck, and cheek.  she giggled, and tried to play with my hair.  i stood up and just looked at her a minute.  remembering.  one year.  it's hard to believe.  the nine hours of sitting.  the nurse who came by every hour to update us.  the surgeon who did his best to warn us that he didn't think she would do well.
walking into the huge room we were given because the doctors all believed she would need to be on bypass still. she wasn't.  rejoicing when she began pacing on her own.  rejoicing when they closed her sternum the next day.  tears of joy when that damn tube finally came out of her throat.  seeing her whole round face for the first time in nine weeks.
it's hard to believe it has been a whole year.  it's hard to believe it has only been a year.  it feels like some sort of alternate universe we lived in.  one i have tried hard to forget.  but there's this scar.  i see it everyday.  the ugly and beautiful mingle together.  all i can find is thankfulness that my little is here.
yesterday, as a sat at the funeral sofi,  i was reminded of where we had been.  i remembered trying to prepare my heart to say goodbye.  i remembered middle of the night text to my husband, 'i don't think she's going to make it.  her sats are five, they are bagging her, and she isn't coming out of it.'  and i remembered the day that so many other parents of little's who need ohs fear.
but we weren't afraid. it was our only chance of ever having our little back.

happy heart day, sweet little.