Today started out with the typical routine of getting the kids up, ready and driven to school. I went about my day, oblivious to its significance until I opened up Timehop. It was as if I had been mindlessly jogging along when suddenly I was clothes-lined at the neck, knocked down, choked. Nora is always, always so close in thought, but I hate to think of her in the place that she was 4 years ago today.

Today is the day that we casually strolled in to the ER at Children’s expecting for Nora to get some IV fluids and then we’d be on our way back home. In the terrible, awful blink of an eye, the true gravity of the situation was revealed.  One minute we were checking in at the desk, the next we were in the shock and trauma bay. I kept getting glimpses of her sweet skin through the mob of doctors and nurses surrounding her. A very controlled and professional dire urgency assumed the room, but for me standing in the corner about to lose my mind, being literally held up by my husband. I always knew back in that dusty corner of my mind that our time with Nora was limited, but I never dreamt it would end like this. And then it didn’t end. She was stabilized. She survived the surgery to correct her stomach that had somehow flipped and cinched off the blood supply. Gastric Volvulous, as it was medically termed. And all the while, where the FUCK was my maternal instinct warning that something was terribly wrong?? How could I have let her go through the night like that?? I was (still often am) tortured with guilt. “There’s no way you could have known,” the doctor with the soothing voice explained, “This type of thing is such a fluke, especially in children. This is something that usually happens to little old ladies.” Little old ladies, huh? This sweet baby girl with such knowing wisdom in her eyes, well beyond her years. This baby who didn’t care much for cartoons or baby shows, but who loved to watch Matlock and Texas Walker Ranger with her afghan across her knees. This Lady Baby with the old soul.  Her stomach flipped. Yeah, okay, God.

May 18, 2014 was the beginning of the end. It wasn’t Nora’s heart or her lungs that we kept such special watch on. It was something that was completely under our radar, and I suspect that God planned it that way. While I was pregnant with her, we prayed, begged and pleaded to be able to have just SOME time with her, “Even if it’s just a couple of hours, God!” Instead we were lavished with 18,633 hours, exceedingly more than we had asked for.

“I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)