Fourteen years ago today, Briggs, his dad, and I were coming home from emergency surgery. After a 61-day NICU stay at Beth Israel, he’d only been home about 36 hours before we rushed back to Boston Children’s for an emergency surgery over Labor Day weekend.
Parenthood was a rough start.
I want to say it got easier. Eventually, I did worry less about his physical safety every single moment. But other worries came. They always do.
It never really got easier — just different. Different in ways that healed and broke my heart at the same time. Still, I wouldn’t trade any of it. Not even the worst days.
This feeling is strange and precious: chronicling a life that is both separate from me and still always a part of me. Some days it feels relentless. A few, it feels like perfection. And others, like today, it feels almost impossible.
Because wasn’t I just in high school myself, five… maybe ten years ago?
Maybe it’s impossibility. Maybe it’s a miracle. Maybe it’s both. Which is probably why it feels indescribable.
There was a hard no on a first-day picture, but thanks to his dad’s gentle nudge, I did get a selfie on the walk to school. Unplanned, yes — but also perfect. Because in it, I see him stepping into what’s next… wearing the colors of my own alma mater.
Go Orioles. I mean, Go Rams. :)