She and I

Seventeen years ago today a baby was born weighing just under two pounds. She entered the world just as she has lived her life – kicking, screaming, fighting, and determined to have her way. She endured liver biopsies, brain surgeries, eye and ear surgeries, monitors and enough medicines to fill several gallon sized containers. Then at age two, she found her way to me, the mother she was always meant to have.

We’ve struggled, she and I…so many medical issues about which I knew nothing…the closest brush with death that I hope never to experience again…the school battles and lawsuits…the insurance battles and lawsuits…and the general growing up in a crazy world issues (OMG, the teenage years….). But through it all our hearts have grown virtual connective tissue. We are of one heart now, she and I, one heart that must have its two parts intact to survive.

Her smiles as she opens her eyes and turns her face to me each morning turn the world into Technicolor. The touch of her hand on my face when she wants to make sure I understand what she is trying to tell me imparts a peaceful understanding and acceptance that everything is right and good. And when I look into her eyes, I see the wisdom, the truth, and the love that God has imprinted on her soul.

She is my beautiful daughter, one of the strongest loves of my life, the child I dreamed of when I was a child. I cannot imagine not having her in my life or my not being in hers. God willing, we will have many more years together, and when God decides that it is my time to leave this world, I sincerely hope she is just one breath away from joining me.

Happy birthday, my dear Ashley. Love, mama.