Sean and I have been trying to catch up on Call the Midwife after the girls go to bed. Last night we watched an episode that featured a mom and her disabled son. She spoke about the challenges, the isolation and loneliness, and the love. She was dealing with schooling challenges for her son not unlike ones that we're currently dealing with. Needless to say, I related.

I've often described disability parenting as grieving in reverse. Instead of a big, tragic event that takes place like a boom and then you spend time recovering from it, it unfolds slowly over time, little by little, hitting you more and more (and in different ways) as time goes on. It's not the kind of grief that requires an "I'm sorry." It's different. It's cloaked in joy and love. But it still aches.

There's a disability mom who shares her reflections on social media, and her words always hit me. Here's her latest:

"There's a kind of grief that doesn't wear black.
It doesn't come with casseroles or condolences.
It doesn't announce itself.
But it is there -
in the quiet corners of your motherhood.

It's the ache of what you thought life would be.
The dreams you whispered when you were still pregnant.
The milestones you assumed would come,
the plans you never thought you'd have to let go of.

It's sitting in a room full of moms,
listening to conversations that don't include you anymore.
Because your story is too different, too heavy, too unknown.

It's grieving the absence of ease.
That simple ability to just go...
to church, to the park. to the grocery store,
without the preparation, the stares,
the whispered apologies,
the mental calculations of
'Will this be too much for them today?'

It's the slow, sacred unraveling of your old self.
The self who thought control was possible.
The self who believed hard work could fix anything.
The self who once imagined motherhood would be hard, but not this hard.

And then there's the anticipatory grief.
The questions that wake you in the middle of the night:
Who will hold their hand when I'm gone?
Will they ever find a place to belong?
Will someone love them like I do?

This kind of grief is strange.
Because it walks hand-in-hand with joy.
You can marvel at your child's laugh,
and still feel the weight of what's been lost.
You can love them with every fiber of your being,
and still grieve the road you didn't choose.

Grief is not a betrayal of your love.
It's the evidence of it.
Even Jesus wept.
Not because He lacked faith,
but because love,
when touched by brokenness, aches.

Grief and love can live in the same breath.
And both are held in the hands of a God
who knows what it means to lose
and still love fully."

- Rachael Vermeulen

It's been hard feeling like some of Hannah's needs have been put on the back burner these last few years, first because we had a newborn taking our attention, and now because cancer is. I know that we're doing our best, and I know that what Hannah needs most is her mom, so I'm trying to focus on that, but the guilt creeps in nonetheless. We have some decisions that need to be made over the coming months. Please pray for those. And, most of all, give thanks to God with us for the sweetest girl, who teaches me daily about life and love. Yes, there is grief. But there is also so much joy.