It's the strangest times that things hit me... tonight, I was gathering photos of Makenna for a class project. They will make a timeline of her life in honor of her birthday; which is Sunday. She'll be four! That amazing speed at which time has traveled between her birth and this day is a topic for another post...
The project requires that you send in a photo representing each year of life. So Makenna would need 5 photos. Birth, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and 4 years ~ or yesterday :). So, as I sort through photos two things strike me.
The first is something that I have already noticed, but was reminded of... We don't have that many good pictures of Makenna from about 6 months to 19 months. Her eyes were all over the place! It made it hard to take photos, and if we did take them, it took a million to get one where she was looking the same way with both eyes. All of these pictures were hard to look at tonight. But in the same breath, I was so relieved that we were able to find the right doctors who could do the surgery so early to fix her eye alignment!!
The second is more of a philosophy. Well, more deciding on a philosophy. I have to make a decision. Do I include a picture of her in her hug machine? That would encompass her second or third year of life. It is an integral part of her life and if you are telling a story of her life ~ I don't think you can leave it out... Or, is it a subthought? A very important part of her life, but one that enabled her to live the rest of her life without constantly being tied to the scoliosis?
And I think what I've decided is that the hug machine (and the whole story that comes with it), is important to me. It's important from my perspective. I couldn't tell the story of her life without including it. But I don't think it's important from her perspective. I always talk about her amazing resilience; the ease with which she knocks down the seeming insurpassable obastacles of the hug machine and now the brace. She is not defined by her experience with scoliosis. It doesn't encompass (or do justice) to the person she is. Sure it's a part of her; and an amazing story, but I don't think it defines her life. She's so much more than a child with scoliosis (and a weird eye thing... and a rare genetic disorder!).
And so what it came down to was the two pictures I had to choose from for age 2. And I only had to answer a very simple question... which picture defines Makenna better?
The project requires that you send in a photo representing each year of life. So Makenna would need 5 photos. Birth, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and 4 years ~ or yesterday :). So, as I sort through photos two things strike me.
The first is something that I have already noticed, but was reminded of... We don't have that many good pictures of Makenna from about 6 months to 19 months. Her eyes were all over the place! It made it hard to take photos, and if we did take them, it took a million to get one where she was looking the same way with both eyes. All of these pictures were hard to look at tonight. But in the same breath, I was so relieved that we were able to find the right doctors who could do the surgery so early to fix her eye alignment!!
The second is more of a philosophy. Well, more deciding on a philosophy. I have to make a decision. Do I include a picture of her in her hug machine? That would encompass her second or third year of life. It is an integral part of her life and if you are telling a story of her life ~ I don't think you can leave it out... Or, is it a subthought? A very important part of her life, but one that enabled her to live the rest of her life without constantly being tied to the scoliosis?
And I think what I've decided is that the hug machine (and the whole story that comes with it), is important to me. It's important from my perspective. I couldn't tell the story of her life without including it. But I don't think it's important from her perspective. I always talk about her amazing resilience; the ease with which she knocks down the seeming insurpassable obastacles of the hug machine and now the brace. She is not defined by her experience with scoliosis. It doesn't encompass (or do justice) to the person she is. Sure it's a part of her; and an amazing story, but I don't think it defines her life. She's so much more than a child with scoliosis (and a weird eye thing... and a rare genetic disorder!).
And so what it came down to was the two pictures I had to choose from for age 2. And I only had to answer a very simple question... which picture defines Makenna better?
Scoliosis,and the hug machine, is just what happened in Makenna's story... but it's not what her story is about. Her story is about a little girl who defies odds. A little girls who loves life. A little girls who climbs on the table to play with the dollhouse that's almost bigger than she is. A little girls who sings at the top of her lungs, bounces when she walks, has a laugh that warms your heart, and a resilience that inspires. That's her story. And she's sticking to it ;)