A brighter day

You may have gathered my mood was not a light one when I wrote my last post. It's not like me to dwell on the negative, but sometimes you can't help yourself. Sometimes the weight of this whole journey gets a little heavy. Then, if you have bad news- that may be even unrelated completely to Elin- it can tip your balance. The knife edge of emotion that you regularly find yourself walking along as a parent of a severely disabled child becomes impossible to negotiate effectively. So you fall off the edge a bit. Only a bit- you're used to this after all. But still, it's hard sometimes. I'm not trying to apologise for these times, it would be disingenuous and lets face it, slightly weird if I wrote a blog like this and pretended everything was all sunshine and lollipops. It's not. But today I can say thank you to the Universe again. Thank you that these times of darkness are so much fewer and further between than they once were. I can recognise this, how our lives have taken 8 years to feel normal, but that, thankfully, normal is exactly what we feel. For the majority of the time anyway. The shadows only seep through the cracks in the light that Elin brings to us occasionally now. And I am thankful for that, every day.
Elin herself has been wonderful, for so long. Like every other Mum of a severely disabled child I am almost afraid to say this. But we have to celebrate the good times without being frightened of any repercussions fate might decide to deal us! She really has been amazing. We are so happy and proud of her. School report continual improvements in how alert she is and in her abilities (such as using switches). Just wonderful. We got through the dreaded month of October with out any problems (first ever) even though a little cough reared its ugly head- it didn't develop. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Oh- and Caitlin is having the best time ever at Drama School in London. Having visited her cute little bohemian flat that she shares with two fellow acting students a few weeks ago I can confirm she is 'living the dream'!! I wanted to stay and be a student again!! It's hard work (hours are 9am-6pm daily) but since when did anyone achieve a dream without hard work?? It's such a wonderful and exciting time for her. She loves it.
On Friday Caitlin came home for the first time since she left for London on September 8th. " I was SO glad to wake up this morning and see a field!!" :-) It's been two long months without her beloved big sister for Elin. We were anxious to see how she would respond. At first, Elin was a little confused. You can't blame her! Two months is an age for her. As she tried to get her bearings it was clear she was desperately trying to work out what was going on. Then she slowly seemed to understand that the prodigal sister had returned and was delighted. I'll let the photograph do the rest of the talking...

We do have so much to be thankful for. And we are.

Until next time folks...

x