I have had a really rough week. Pain has been competing for my undivided attention, and the last few days it has won. I hate it when that happens…. It makes me feel weak and useless. It reminds me how powerless I am. I flounder for a while but then I remind myself to breathe and try to see it from a different perspective… it’ll be okay… this too shall pass… I am stronger than I think I am, and at my greatest moments of weakness, when I convince myself I have no more strength to keep fighting, my honey is always there to carry half the load. I truly would be lost without him.
On Thursday afternoon, as I was walking my son home from school, all I could think about was trying to get a grip on this searing and relentless pain…. It gets so frustrating when all I want to do is connect with the world around me, and PAIN gets in the way.
My son was happily holding my hand, and skipping along the sidewalk chatting about his day, and all I could think about was how much his tiny hand brought pain to mine… What kind of life is this?? I asked myself. What quality of life is there when you can’t even do the simplest of things?! How do I keep fighting off this beast when I have no strength left? I have asked myself these questions a million times… and every time I ask the question I am given an answer… I ALWAYS find something that keeps my hopes up, and keeps me going…
My son and I pass a store EVERY day on the way home. I had never been in the store, and not really given it a whole lot of attention either… it is just a building among all the other buildings that we walk by every day on our way home… and usually I am concentrating on getting home as quickly and as painlessly as possible.
For whatever reason, my son and I stopped dead in our tracks right in front of the store window. He went to grab his water bottle out of his backpack, and I decided to have a little stretch before continuing our journey home…. and something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye…. the word STRENGTH, carved into a beautiful slab of marble in the front window of this store… For a few seconds I was completely mesmerized. I was drawn to this piece of art… It was magnetic… When I broke the trance and looked down at my son, he was staring at the plaque exactly as I was, with his eyes wide, and a serene look on his face….
After a few moments, we pulled ourselves away and kept on walking, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head. I asked my son what he thought of the stone, and he went on about how beautiful he thought it was. I asked him what he thought of when he looked at it, and he simply said “Tim”…. I couldn’t have agreed with him more. My honey has been our rock and a source of strength to both of us. I was touched that my child had the same reaction I did, and knew that it wasn’t a coincidence. What an amazing thing for him to say! I told my son that if the stone was still there when we walked home from school the following day, then we could go into the store to take a closer look…
We ran back to the store on the way home from school yesterday (okay, well I can’t run, but you know what I mean) LOL! We were both excited to see if it was still there… It WAS!! We went into the store, and asked the salesperson if she could take it out of the front window so we could see it. We were bursting with anticipation!
Moments later she put the cold smooth piece of marble in my hands… It was MUCH heavier than I thought it would be. I ran my fingers along the edge of the engraved letters…. S-T-R-E-N-G-T-H…. What a meaningful word in my life right now…. My honey is my STRENGTH… My son is my STRENGTH… My parents are my STRENGTH.. Some days I don’t feel like I have much STRENGTH left… I reflect on how much STRENGTH is has taken me to get this far… without the STRENGTH of my family, I wouldn’t be here… the bonds of love in my life are so much stronger than the pain is…
I asked the sales lady to wrap it up for me, because I was taking it home… I knew I had to give it to my love as a gift. I wanted to give him a symbol of what he means to me and my son. He is our rock and our strength.
The rest of the walk home was difficult to say the least. I struggled to carry this heavy slab of marble on my own. My son offered to help me, but there was no way he could have carried it, it felt like it weighed a tonne! Only 4 more blocks to go… Only 3 more blocks to go…Only 2 more blocks to go… My arms felt as if they were going to give out. My shoulders were burning, and my legs were shaking… Maybe not the smartest thing to do when I am flaring so badly! 
… I let out a HUGE sigh of relief when we got to our building, up the elevator, and into our home. We quickly pulled off our winter wear, dumping everything on the floor, so we could unwrap the stone and set it up on our mantle in the living room.
Later in the evening when my honey came home, I showed him his gift. I told him that both me and my son just KNEW that we had to get it for him because it represented what he meant in our lives….
“Is this really for me?!?!?” He asked…
“Well of course it is honey!!” I replied… who else would it represent in our home?
“It’s beautiful, and I am touched…Thank you… but the real strength in our family is YOU my Angel… YOU are OUR STRENGTH.” he said as he gave me a hug….
We bought it for him, but it ended up being a gift for all of us…
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