Most Alive Monday: Awakenings

Does he ever speak to you?
Of course not. Not in words.
He speaks to you in other ways...how do you mean?
You don't have children.
No.
If you did you'd know. - From the film, Awakenings
It's been stressful and emotional these past 7 weeks...with the decline and death of my husband's cat and the spontaneous illness of my cat. There is no definitive diagnosis at this time. It is suspected that he has a neurological disease. We are syringe feeding him several times a day and during this last episode he was not quite present and it was suspected that he had suddenly, spontaneously, gone blind.

However, Elvis came back to us...he is clearly seeing and connecting with us. It reminded me of the film, "Awakenings". He is walking around and no longer staggering (However, he is still not eating). When I picked him up to place him on my lap and he turned his body to face mine and looked into my face, I nearly wept. I told my husband that I was afraid to be happy about it, but yet I want to happy for this time...for however long it lasts.

I thought long and hard about posting things with a negative bent for "Most Alive Monday", but I believe that even in our most painful moments we are certainly most alive and making the fullest choices we can make. It has been hard for me to see that however...until now. I realized that I've always had a camera 'round my neck and this tool had enabled me to seek out and document my joys even in the most dreadful of experiences or when I was facing uncertainty....and my lens had proved to be quite grounding and healing as I wrote about in this book.

Our door bell rang in the early evening and when I opened the door, a small brown parcel was sitting upon our weathered sisal mat. "Ooooh what is it, what is?!?!", Satch squealed with excitement. I glanced at the return address and replied, "It's my camera". Satch joyfully exclaimed, "Hooray...are you so happy to have your camera back?!?!" "Why don't you make sure it works first", Robert said as we walked into the kitchen. "Lets not go there", I replied, "Satch has the right idea, lets be happy for this moment".

I'm learning that our children have a way of saying what needs to be said. As parents we are told that we must teach our children how to behave in this world...when all the while, our children are teaching us how to be.

When Satch scraped his knee last week, he didn't want a bandage. He didn't want to cover it up. Instead, he decorated it, with magic markers. May we all have the courage to expose our hurts, to face them, to tell the stories and to honor them as we heal.

I'm back...see you tomorrow.

*About Most Alive Monday: I've decided to make at least one "most alive choice" each day and post my favorite each Monday. This, of course, is to motivate me to consciously "live juicy"! I hope you'll join me and share your "most alive moment" in the comments section so we may inspire each other.