Gratitude

I was going to post about Halloween today — with pictures of the boys in their various costumes: the packaged Target variety for trick-or-treating (which has been postponed until Sunday) and the we’ll-indulge-Mommy’s-crafty-side variety for Storybook Character Day. But it all seems a little inappropriate in light of the destruction and suffering being caused by Hurricane, I mean SuperStorm, Sandy. I realized this when I opened my email Tuesday morning to find a message from a local store announcing their “Sandy Shoe Sale!” and I thought, “Really? … You’re drawing in customers for shoes when people have lost their homes and livelihoods. Really?” I suppose veterans must feel the same way about the inevitable sales associated with their assigned day. (I’m less worried about offending ex-presidents with February mattress sales though.) And it of course reminded me of this ever so poignant (and rather depressing) Facebook post:

So instead of writing about our long lazy day off school on Tuesday (yes, we had our first official “Hurricane Day” due to high winds, downed trees and lack of power throughout Northeast Ohio), I can’t help but think of those suffering who were already suffering. Childhood cancer is the place my mind automatically goes, regarding hurricanes and anything else. And so I find myself thinking about all those kids and their families who believed they were already dealing with their life’s hardest thing. And how much harder it suddenly got on Monday night.

All those kids and their families who’d been holed up in hospitals for chemo and surgeries and stem-cell transplants, parents traveling back and forth between home and hospital, juggling work, other children and their sanity. And suddenly, there is no home, or the other kids have nowhere to go because schools are closed and they certainly can’t come into the hospital in the middle of cold season, with their snotty noses and hacking coughs. I think of the patients who were already in isolation due to stem cell or bone marrow transplants, living in a veritable bubble, who suddenly have to be evacuated through the cold and far-from-sterile streets of New York City to another, over-crowded, unfamiliar hospital. I remember back to the days following both of Austin’s kidney-sparing surgeries, the first in early October 2007 and the second in December 2009, when he had to lie so flat on his bed during recovery that he was actually strapped down. Restrained, with velcro strips attached to the bottom of the bed. There was a medical reason for this, of course: his kidney had to “settle” after being so thoroughly manipulated. But all I can remember was the overwhelming longing I had to hold my baby while he cried out in pain. I just wanted to pick the boy up and rock him in my arms, the single place (then as now) that he feels most safe. And I was unable to do that.

So today, I think of Austin and the others like him, both young and old, who are rendered completely immobile following their complicated and risky procedures, being moved down stairs because elevators are out of order and placed in ambulances to traverse the city through puddles and potholes and twists and turns. And I wonder how much new suffering can be piled on the old suffering.

But I don’t mean for this to be such a downer. I actually mean to say that this moment, like so many others, makes me feel lucky. And on the cusp of the season of gratitude I hope we can all step back and acknowledge how deeply fortunate we are and how truly rich our lives, on most days, in most weather, are. We have friends and family, a roof over our heads, health and mobility, choices and freedom, stores with shelves full of food and gas stations with tanks full of fuel, heat and running water and electricity.

And to those who don’t have some (or any) of those things right now, I wish you this: a good sense of humor, a deep well of patience and, above all, hope.