You’ve heard that saying before right?
Today, I worked from home as Noey is sick. This is not bad news…it’s good new actually. You see, for it to be the end of January and Noey’s first sick day is a miracle in and of itself. Noey was born with tracheomalacia, and while the condition has much improved as he got older, colds hit him hard and often! When he does get a cold, it always results in a visit to the ER to get on a ventilator to open up his airways. But as bad as we think this is, we understand that it’s peanuts compared to what other parents have to deal with. This is the first winter since birth that we haven’t been to the ER with Noey! So ‘YAY’!
Anyway, last night, while trying to get him comfortable so that at least he can get 20 mins rest at a time, I, in my tiredness, was getting a bit impatient. I just wanted to sleep…as he did too I’m sure, but it wasn’t happening. Not last night at least. As Murphy’s law would have it, we both fell sound asleep at about 5:30 this morning. During one of the moments of ‘awakeness’ last night, the title of this post came to me. ‘Life is not a race, it’s a marathon’ was all I could think about.
Two years ago, my husband and best friend ran a half marathon. They trained for months – early morning running, late night running, mid day running – training was intense. But they had a goal and set out to do all that it would take to accomplish that goal. The day of the marathon, my sister Wina and I followed them the entire route. We took the subway and at certain stops, we’d hop off, race up to ground level and watch for them and the other runners and cheer them on endlessly. Sometimes, before we spotted them, we’d hear them call out to us as they were running past. We were looking out for them and they were looking out for us.
While I may never know what it’s like to run a marathon (though it’s on my ‘to-do-before-40’ list), I know for sure that half of getting to the finish line is knowing that you have supporters (known and unknown) along the way, overcoming the twists and turns in the road, taking in the scenery of the run and forming new memories of that run.
So for me, it’s not about figuring out how quickly Noey can get better, but knowing that, if I need relief, Rob, my mom, my sisters and my friends are just a phone call away, I can enjoy great conversations with him (though he was in and out of sleep and out of the shadow of his elder brother Sai) and I can enjoy this time to cuddle with him before he gets too big to enjoy my cuddles…after all it IS only a cold. And though I may be super exhausted at the end of this day…we can cross off another ‘twist’ that we got over in this ‘marathon’!
T
delicatelydope.com 
Wow, I actually got misted up reading this blog! Such a sweet message, I loved it. And you’re right life is a marathon.
So proud of you as a working mother of two boys and an amazing supportive wife
learned another word today Tracheomalacia. Last fall I met a perinatologist at work had no idea there was such a thing. Love learning things like that. Not too much scare me to a point. First wk of class this term a student had a seizure and we had to call the Ambulance. Most of the class seemed frazzled. I just found it a good time to eat my scone. Not that I dont care but you do what you can and get out of the way for others to take over… but your Tracheomalacia experiences sure did sound a bit scary to me ….
OMG! I had a perinatologist for both boys! I started off with mid-wives, but the boys were growing too fast and big in the womb, so they labelled me as ‘high risk’. 2 planned c-sections later and they’re still giving me stuff to talk about. Was the seizure incident in your psy class?