Gifts

I have been given a gift. Well, honestly, I have been given three individual gifts. They are, in order: My soul's companion, my heart's joy and my mind's challenge. They are, also, respectively my son, my oldest daughter and my wee daughter.

Tim was the most amazing child. He was calm, compassionate at an unusually young age, and so smart it was quite simple to tend to him. He spoke in full sentences at 16 months so we communicated with ease much earlier than what is typical. As he grew, it became increasingly obvious he was an old soul to this earth. He was much less rattled by the issues that unsettle the majority of us, but much more confused by why we humans make life so incredibly difficult when it could be so simple.

In Tim, I found my soulmate. I found someone who thought along the lines I did - not because I nurtured him to do so, but just because he was he. I found comfort in having someone else ponder the things I did in the same manner I did. Yet he was brave enough to speak them aloud. I'd kept it all to myself, much too afraid to appear odd or unpopular in my thinking. Over the years, he has been a quiet presence in easing my soul and soothing my nerves and making me feel not quite so alone.

Complimentary to Tim's calming almost Zen affect, Cheyanne was a bright light from the moment she came flying into this world. Her strength of self was apparent minutes after her birth when she lifted her head and looked around a bit. She amazed me at that moment and has been amazing me since.

She has a way of filling the room with sunshine even when she isn't feeling sunny herself. Heedless of the warnings of classic parenting theories, we became best friends and on my darkest days she is who I call. She has a thousand watt smile and such a joie de vivre it's impossible not to want her around for every moment of celebration. Yet her ability to listen and the wisdom she imparts that is so tremendously beyond her years makes it equally impossible not to rely on her through every moment of strife. She is the keeper of my heart.

Tim and Cheyanne were also model children. They were polite, well-behaved, obedient, easy to take along and not at all demanding. I knew - believe me I knew what I had in them and I was truly convinced I would rest on my laurels the remainder of my days with the two beautiful children I'd had.

But along came Dia.

And, you know, she's everything I worried I'd get if I pushed fate one more time. She's ornery, impatient, short-tempered, demanding and high-strung. She can be anxious and needs a ton of reassurance. She has caused me to rethink just about everything I held as truth where parenting was concerned. I've been "one of those parents" dealing with a tantrum in a department store; I've had the phone hijacked and my time drained. I've been bit, scratched, thrown at and even spit upon and ...

And I wouldn't trade her in for a different kid in a million years. She has a way of being with people - an acceptance so great and encompassing - that SHE has taught ME compassion. She draws people to her. She loves every living thing. She teaches me patience greater than I've ever known, she challenges my thinking with the most logical silliness, she stretches my capacity to think outside the box.

Further, and foremost, and kind of the point of this post, she has brought to me the most amazing human beings I have yet to know in this world. She has made my relationships to old friends, to family and even to my silly pets richer and filled with more understanding. She has introduced me to new friends - whether they be her nannies or through the childbirth class that got her here. These are friends that I would have never met otherwise, and who I couldn't imagine living without now that I do know them.

One such person is my dear friend, Sabra, who I wrote about earlier. If you want proof into the kind of gifts I've been given through my children, visit her blog. You'll see it in my blog roll (or just go to it). I consider witnessing Emma's miracle to be one of the gifts the universe has lovingly bestowed upon me through Dia.

So once more, I go to sleep and lay my head down with a humble and most sincere "Thank you." This is truly a blessed life.