A sure sign at our house that spring is right around the corner is Theo's birthday. He recently wrote up a guest list for his birthday party and delivered it to my desk where it sits atop my memories and open heart. Seven years open to all of this pure love that pours in from these little ones, daily. Sometimes it's hard to believe.
I've been working on a gift to myself. I started going through thousands of photos, starting with Theo's birth. I've been picking some of my favorites and pulling them into Lightroom to edit (finally) and sending them straight off to be printed. These are most of the set I chose from Theo's first ten months. (Oh, to pick only ten or so out of hundreds!) This project has been on my mind for a long time but I was never quite ready to do it. I used to only be able to come here and write about the longing. How sad I felt that I could no longer hold them in my arms and rock them into sugar-spun sleep after nursing them. What I wouldn't give to see those toothless, gummy smiles. The yawns! The pain that came when I tried to close my eyes and picture their one week old faces, two month old faces... and everything was slightly out of focus. With time, memories fade. It was just too much at times to try and close my eyes and only see them in a blur. My little sweet potato vine growing kiddos. But that grief has mostly passed. With time I have been able to untangle the vine and find the bloom. Mostly by writing it out. Now, I can look at them and see exactly what is right in front of me: two amazingly healthy growing boys -little dudes. I feel that knowing them is extraordinary. I can only imagine what is next.
So I sit here and begin to piece together the details of a party. And I look at photos from seven years ago and four years ago in a whole new light. (The photo of Theo one day post-op, no more top of his skull under that skin. My face!) To take it all in now with a whole new perspective is such a joy.
And a relief.
My treasure.
