The Agony of Defeat and a Glimpse of Hope

So Thursday was the hardest day that I’ve had in a long time. You see, Thursdays are Anna’s physical therapy days. She’s had a hard time learning to walk. We’ve done as much as we can to encourage her; however, as she speeds toward two (this summer), we sought outside help. The state-funded program First Steps, which is providing free therapy and orthotics for her, has pretty much turned Brian and I into socialists, but that’s another story for another day. I was talking about the difficult Thursday of last week.

It started about 3 AM in the morning when Anna decided it wasn’t time to sleep, but time to play. She’s been a little sick this week (hence my lack of posting), and so she’s coughed pretty hard at night. Her coughing wakes her up and then she thinks it’s time to go for the day. As soon as I opened her bedroom door, I fully expected her to cry out, “Mommy!” or “up!” or “help!” or simply remain crying because she did not feel well. However, instead, she cried, “Bob!” meaning she wanted to watch Veggie Tales’ epic saga Jonah. I must say, I relented. I was so tired that I couldn’t see straight and we ended up watching almost the entire movie in the middle of the night. Finally at about 4:30, I laid her back down to sleep. And I tried to get back to sleep myself which really didn’t ever happen with any success. I thought that she might sleep in in the morning, but I thought wrong. We were off and running at 7:30 AM. 9:30 AM rolled around and it was therapy time.

Therapy was more challenging this past week (for both Anna and for me) than it ever had been. The therapist made Anna walk from the middle of our living room to the kitchen, not that great of a distance, but farther than we’ve ever gone before. I was in front of her coaxing her along and the therapist behind holding her legs into position. Anna screamed the entire way. Whether in pain, fear, or mere show of will, she loudly displayed her protest. There is nothing more despairing than to see your child try and desire to do something without receiving the outcome she desires. All of the time, I see small glimpses that Anna desires to walk and even more so to “dance” (as she often says while she strikes a pose). And so her tears mingled with mine that Thursday morning as she was unsuccessful at achieving her goal. It was an emotion that I had never experienced before. It triggered all sorts of feelings – fear, guilt, frustration, resentment – the list goes on and on. As cliché as it sounds, I could only describe it as gut-wrenching. And while cognitively, I knew what was necessary for her to learn, I was inwardly wishing the therapist would just go away or at bare minimum, give it a rest. She then confused my hurting for Anna as some other motherly issue of not wanting her to cry ever (which is not really an issue in our house). By the time she left, I was ready to wallow in my feelings.

The rest of the afternoon proceeded with a lack of a decent nap, a broken glass, a little cut finger that would not stop bleeding for anything, and a really smelly diaper (the last three event happening within three minutes of each other, of course!). What a day to be mommy!

Sunday, though was a different story. Anna had a grand breakthrough. She stood independently in the middle of our floor with no support for about 25 seconds. This is amazing since she’s never even stood for 1 second before.

Just when you think that you can handle no more, something gives, shifts, rearranges, and you can. Sometimes, a glimpse of hope is all you need when in the agony of defeat to begin the road to walking again