Everyone says that kids are a blessing.  (Well, most everyone, anyway.)  I’ve always said this, too, but I don’t know that I’d ever truly thought about what that means.

Until I met Brooklyn’s mom.

It’s a little startling to realize I had a life changing experience in Walmart’s dairy aisle (because who wouldn’t put candy beside the yogurt?), but I’m beginning to embrace the idea that we don’t pick where life hits us upside the head.  If it’s time to evolve, it’s time to evolve, location be damned.

I’ve always felt blessed to call T-man and Bear my children; I know I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have been chosen as their mom. But until I talked with Brooklyn’s mom about losing her daughter to SIDS, I don’t know that I truly grasped how fragile life can be.  That the parent/child link can be torn apart by cruel circumstances or terrible luck, without warning and with devastating results.

So today I’m grateful for my kids.  The good days, the bad days, and the days in between.  Every single minute with them is a gift, even the minutes that don’t quite feel like it, because the alternative is unthinkable.  I can’t begin to imagine how I’d survive without those munchkins.

 

My post as part of Colline’s My Gratitude Project.