What's in a smile

What does hope look like to you? When your child is sick or injured, you throw this hope word around a lot and it means such different things at different stages of the journey. In the early days after Emmy's birth, my hope was for her to be "normal". . .to walk, talk, eat and do all of the stuff we used to take for granted. I really didn't foresee her being almost three years old and still not being capable of holding her head up for much longer than a few seconds. I knew her situation was severe. I'd read stories about older kids who were severely affected by their brain injuries and I never imagined that would be her outcome, or that I'd be ok with it. I wasn't ready. But it's funny how your hopes change as you progress in your journey. Maybe that's called acceptance? Little by little, based on the outcomes of your child, you revise your goals.

It took almost a year to come to terms with the fact that Emmy would not walk, talk or eat anytime soon. And when she does do each of those things (which I know she will), I now know it'll look much different than I would have expected before she was born. But one of my biggest hopes after living through that first year of a very unhappy child screaming around the clock with only scarce glimpses of a smile in her sleep near the end of her first year, was for her to be happy. We longed for a smile that would confirm it. It killed me to see her in such discomfort and not be able to do anything about it.

Little by little that smile came around. It took years, sometimes hiding for weeks or months before it would return. Our moods started to revolve around that smile. When it came, life was good. When it didn't, life was bad. It was not to be taken for granted. The slightest tease of a smile and we'd spring into action to get a photo. One of the first ways to get a smile was vigorously bicycling her legs. I did this tirelessly.

And now, finally at almost 3 years old, that miraculous smile comes regularly. It's usually the first thing she does when she wakes in the morning and the response you get when you tell her secrets, turn her upside down, spin her in a circle, let her look in the mirror, sing her favorite songs or let her dog Daisy lick her face.

Of course I have new hopes now and we're always striving for more. But live a year with a child who doesn't smile, and I promise you that once they can (and do), it's really all that matters.