Strength and Weakness

Sometimes, when I think about all that Henry went through and how sick he must have felt, I feel weak.  When I had a cold...just a cold, no fever, no nausea, just a stuffy head and nose, I complained and acted like I was deathly ill.  Yet Henry, little Henry, had cancer...leukemia...and he smiled and carried on like any normal six-month-old.  Looking back at pictures, I see how sick he was.  At the time, of course, we had no idea.  And why would we have?  No one assumes that their six-month-old who has a bit of a cold or an ear infection is actually battling something much bigger.  To me, Henry is the definition of strength.  He smiled, he played, he snuggled, he loved...even as this vicious awful disease was attacking his body.

The other day, though, I realized that Tim and I do actually have some of Henry's strength.  Henry felt like crap, but he smiled anyway.  And on a daily basis, Tim and I feel like "crap," but we smile and carry on.  We may not have a cancer eating away at our body, but we have a grief eating away at our heart.  And just like Henry fought to beat the cancer, we fight to survive the grief.  And had Henry "beat" the cancer, it would always have still been there.  Every doctor's appointment would have brought anxiety...every sniffle would have us worried.  So it is with grief.  We will never "beat" grief.  But we are learning to live with it...learning to make our way in a world without our boys in it...learning to find happiness with what we do have and what we will have.  That's what I have to remind myself of in those moments when I feel weak...that Henry gave me the strength to go on.