This time of year

We have been doing our best to fully enjoy autumn this year.  The past few weekends have found us at a pumpkin patch, camping, riding bikes down hills, farmer's markets, playing games at home, and soaking up the companionship of dear friends.  After a blazing hot summer, it feels that there is no better time of year than the fall.

We have settled into a school routine with Anya.  In some ways, it was easier than expected - the act of getting up and going to school has been much easier this year than last year, despite having to do it five days a week.  Some parts of adjusting to school were hard, and the sources for those are more difficult to name, but I can say that there were a lot more grumpy evenings from the school girl than we have had in awhile.  Overall, I feel that we are exiting the fog that has hung over our family for the past two years.  I feel happy.  I didn't feel unhappy last year, but in comparison to how I feel now, I wonder if the people around me thought that I was often grumpy.  My girls are happy too.  We spend far less time in the car and at appointments.  We are out living instead, and all the while smiling and laughing a lot.

This time of year also brings with it some anniversaries.  For the past two years in the fall, Anya has had major eye surgeries.  Early September 2010, she went in for surgery to repair a detached retina in her right eye, and ended up with a detached retina, and surgery, in her left eye as well.  Less than two weeks later, we found out that the damage done to her right eye was irreparable and that she would never see out of that eye again.  Just one year ago, the tumor in her right eye revived itself, and we made the horrifying decision to have her eye removed.  October 10 marks the anniversary of her enucleation.  Just writing about these events again brings tears to my eyes.  I don't suppose I will ever forget either of those days:  how hard it was to walk into the hospital, staying strong while we walked Anya through all of the pre-op steps, and then the anxious hours spent in the waiting room.  There is always relief that comes in seeing her, and touching her, once again in recovery.  No matter how bruised, swollen, bandaged, or disoriented she was, I always found her breathing, which is truly all that matters at that point.

I tell myself that I won't let my guard down, that I will be prepared for more bumps in this road.  But the truth is, I do let that guard down.  Time and time again, the pain blurs a bit, and the present arrives and must be dealt with.  I believe that it is somehow ingrained in the human spirit to have hope.  I have seen how one can be knocked down over and over, but even in the times that seem unquestionably bleak, there remains hope.  For now, my hope is clear - that we never enter into those difficult times again.  I hope that my daughter, at six, has lived through the hardest part of her life.  I hope that the anniversaries come and go and each year I can think, like I do now, "Look at how far we have come."