His scream sucked me cold out of sleep. It had just turned midnight and as the dream evaporated, I did not know I would rest again only after dawn. My son had woken—yet again to spit thick, cloudy coughs into a waiting mountain of Kleenex. Tennyson cried, holding the ice pack down on his head, wiping at watery eyes. How much can a kid take? How much could I? Unrelenting 16-hour shifts nursing him hand and foot and chasing down every remedy, days of aborted sleep. I was now battling the flu.

This thing that’s mowed him down, unflinching in the face of the best practitioners and products, turned out to be a seasonal pollen allergy that tag-teamed with the flu. I realized the allergy had stealthily flared all last month as the pollen count here rose and then let up the two days it fell in California’s early spring. On the way home with the diagnosis the other day,  I decided some plants would filter the air in his room. We picked out a big, tall palm and a cute little guy that made us smile, a Money Tree. Ten minutes later on our drive, Tennyson clutched his throat, hands wet with desperate tears. His throat tightened and hurt. The plants. How sad is that, being allergic to the Money Tree! And then a virus came along to kick him while he was down, sending him off a cliff, parents in tow. I didn’t remember my boy being so sick. Reserves are not bottomless. It’s incredible what life asks of us sometimes.

Where’ve I been? I’ve been stressed, if that isn’t obvious. We’re behind in the homeschool. Testing for Memory Master lies around the corner. The little mister has missed every baseball practice and Saturday’s opening game. We’ve been so disappointed, but the email from the coach touched me deeply.

Hi Diana,
No worries. I hope he is feeling better. His health comes before baseball. We are praying for him.

I wish this man knew the gift he was. I’m sure he inspires kids to love baseball and teamwork, but his humanity and ministry to me meant everything. Even as he’d played professionally, he remembered it was about people, not the game. It takes so little to help someone up. You persevere in hope, but how long? And how, in the teeth of it going from bad to worse? Answers can come from the most unexpected places.

Flowers don’t like me. I can’t seem to coax them to life. They must sense the Tiger Mom and on cue suffer performance anxiety. It also doesn’t help that I forget to care for them. And so looking up from the dishes last night, I was stunned at the sight of the bold blossom on my windowsill. I had given up on the orchid that had dropped all its petals some six months ago, even though it was said to be only going dormant. How foregone it’d looked, stripped of promise. But here was a triumphant awakening, the white silk so fragile, so strong. My eyes smarted. How…under my watch? In all this despair? The tenacity not only of life, but of beauty. The insistence of hope.

***************

Goodness, is it only March? I can do this. Nine more months, and I get to reset and wish myself another happy, hard year.

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