I am often asked how I do it. How I full time mom with a little one still at home, no family around to help, studying late into the night for a degree. How I do it all by myself. How often I hear, “I couldn’t do what you are doing. How are you doing what you are doing?”
Here is my answer…..
I think of this woman Veronica who worked for us in Uganda. She helped me with the children, helped me with the house, helped me in the kitchen. Then every night she went home alone to her son and did it all over again. She played with him, cleaned her home, prepared their dinner. Then woke to come back to me. I think of her.
I think of my husband dropping food from the sky to refugees who have no home. Masses huddled together waiting for the sky to open and rain down food so they can survive. I think of them.
I think of time as something so precious and this time as something we will forever hold in our hearts. The time we were all alone on the island, just the three of us. Endless walks on the beach, long board games during rainy days, knowing each other so well we knew when the other would take their next breath. Just the three of us, floating together. I think of how much this time will mean to me, and I hope to them.
I think about how one day they will be older and friends will become their confidants, how the world will become their playground to explore with others, how they will have their own families and I will cease to be the center of their world with each of these steps. I think about how at this moment they are still so completely mine.
So yes, some days I am sinking. Many days I have crippling fatigue. But I think of Veronica and refugee camps and closeness and the fleetingness of it all and I wake up every single day saying thank you, thank you, thank you.