This past weekend we went on a hike. The kind that keeps you a little breathless throughout, but afterwards you’re proud you made it. I watched Bella walk through the forest with her little water bottle in hand, surrounded by the beauty of the nature around us, and I felt proud of her, of our family, of every step we have taken to get here. 

Then the kids spent time at the pool — swimming and splashing and laughing with their cousins until they were worn out the way kids are supposed to be worn out on a Sunday.

There was a time when Bella’s whole world was hospital rooms.

The nurses used to call her a fish out of water. It was their gentle way of telling me she was struggling to breathe again. That her lungs just couldn’t do what lungs are supposed to do. I heard those words more times than I wish to remember in those 471 days.

A fish out of water.

And this weekend she used those lungs. With giggles and laughter and her cousins splashing all around her.

She is not a fish out of water anymore.

She is exactly where she belongs. 💜

This is what we are fighting to protect. Not just appointments and insurance and specialist visits — although that fight is real and it matters deeply. But this. The hike. The pool. The giggles. The ordinary, extraordinary Sunday.

Thank you for helping make these days possible. 💜