Oct/Nov 2018

We've been trying to shorten our bedtime routine by limiting how many books we read and how many songs we sing after lights out. It's supposed to be 2 stories and 2 songs, but usually it's 4 books and...a dozen songs (currently taking song suggestions as I've been singing Christmas Carols for a month now), and a few made up fairy tales after lights out.

Lately, Louis has been asking, "Mama, song? Bay?" Bay means, "belly," and he's requesting a belly rub with his serenade. Happily, I oblige. We've been giving Louis scar massages since he was a few months old. Scar tissue grows like tree roots, binding down on anything under the surface. Massaging the scar looses those roots and allows the skin to grow and heal underneath. If we do this enough, it has the potential to lessen the severity of his scar as he grows.

And I thought that, by now, his scars would be familiar terrain under my fingertips. But tonight, I feel them deeply, as if for the first time...again.
Each scar representing a battle of survival, which is both incredible and deeply devastating as his mother; his first open heart surgery, his second, his pacemaker implantation, his chest tubes, his peritoneal drain, the tiny bumps from his PICC line stitches, and the arterial line that was in his wrist.
I'm half way through, This Old Man, and I can feel the heat of my tears rising. Louis has quieted. His eyelids are heavy and he has settled in to his pillow. He scoots a bit closer to me. He holds my left hand and snuggles onto his side, while my right hand relives his silent resilience through the marks on his belly. I can feel his breath slowing, and his body relax a bit. He drifts off to dreamland and begins to smile in his sleep.
It's no surprise, I am sobbing silently, crying out in gratitude, and fear, and love, and grief, and all that is Louis.