Monday, May 24, 2010

This Lovely Life

This Lovely Life
This weekend I read the book:  This lovely life: a memoir of premature motherhood.   It opened my eyes to the suffering and grief that can surround families with premature and severely disabled children.  The book also showed how the mother came to love and care for her premature twins conceived after years of fertility treatments while finding forgiveness and embracing her "lovely life".  Born at 24 wks gestation, one twin died just a few days after birth, while the other lived almost 8 yrs with severe disabilities.  This book taught me more about how devastating and life changing the loss of a child, and caring for a child with disabilities can be.  It also taught me how we can rise above these challenges and accept them.

In the book she included this poem written by her friend's grandmother.  The author's friend also had a disabled daughter and they had met during their time in the NICU together.

Ah, lovely life

Come stay yet a while with me
I am a beggar for your errant charms,
although I know your sorrows many be

I try to hold you prisoner in my arms
I'll ever dread to see you go away

Yet you are fickle as the 
restless sea

Your trials are heavy 
let come what may
The thrill of you is ever there
for me. 

Through this book I was reminded that while I don't have a perfect life, I have a lovely one.  This weekend was hard for me emotionally.  I have no idea why, maybe I was hormonal, maybe I was wasn't.  I was just tired of still not having kids.  But kids or no kids, I do have a lovely life and I will make more of an effort to remember that and enjoy the loveliness that it contains.    

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for the reminder! I also have a lovely life that I am do not act grateful for nearly enough! I needed that today!

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  2. Thank you so much for the mention, and for letting others know how the book affected you. I will let my friend H. know that the poem resonated in particular. I'm sure that will mean a great deal to her.

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  3. What a heartbreaking but inspirational story. I hope that everything works out for you and find eternal happiness.

    Happy ICLW!(#64)

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  4. Thanks for the info on this book, it sounds incredibly touching & inspiring! What an amazing reminder of all we have to be thankful for in this lovely life:)

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  5. I find that when I stand back and truly look at my life, it looks ten times as beautiful as I thought. It takes stories like these to remind us that our lives are precious and wonderful despite the heartaches (or perhaps because of them)

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  6. Beautiful. I'm new to you through ICLW, and will be back!

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  7. It is good to remember that the grass isn't always greener on the other side of IF. Thanks.
    ICLW

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  8. Thanks for this reminder. My What IF blog post was about being so scared that if we go through 'all of this' to have a child/ren, what if we are faced with a disability? I don't know if I could handle it.

    And my husband reminded me recently that I need to start being happy with what we have... he says I'm always looking for what's next - next job, when we have kids, when this or that changes... and wonders if I'll ever be truly happy. Interesting. It was a huge awakening to me to hear him say that and have been trying to be more 'present'. Your post is a reinforcement of that. Easier said than done, particularly with us miscarrying (again) this week.. but I will try, so - Thank you!

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