I have’t been in the frame of mind to write a blog in awhile. I guess that’s what happens when a global pandemic leaves you locked away in your home for going on 11 months now with 2 sons, one of whom is profoundly disabled. This morning, as I scrolled through my Facebook memories of the day, I was struck by two memories in particular. Struck enough so that they’ve prompted me to once again write a blog entry.

January 30, 2004. Hard to believe that was 17 years ago. Time and life certainly have a way of flying by, don’t they? This was the morning I woke up and did a home pregnancy test. I said a prayer before I took it, hoping it would be positive. After 4 miscarriages and having to seek the help of an infertility specialist, I paced up and down the bathroom floor as I waited for the longest few minutes in history to pass by. Positive. It was positive. I literally fell to my knees crying in thanks. And even though I knew, considering my miscarriage history, that it would be a rough road, I had another chance and that’s all that mattered.

January 30, 2021. The boy who finally made my dream of becoming a mother is down the hallway now, laying in his medical bed, watching Finding Dory, in between doses of his many twice-daily medications. Brendan Bjorn. My first born son. The reason for this blog. The boy who is now a young man. At the risk of repeating myself, he has taught me more about life and love than I could ever have hoped to teach him. Never a truer word was spoken. And while this journey has been incredibly difficult and it has certainly taken its toll on me physically, his purpose in this world – what he has taught the world about unconditional love – must be the primary focus as I look back over the years.

January 30, 2010. Facebook reminded me this morning that it was on this same date in my life, just 6 years later, that my second born son – my “miracle boy” Declan, as I think of him – graduated from a crib (cot) to a toddler bed. Tears rolled softly down my face this morning as I looked back at the photos of him excitedly practicing climbing on and off his new bed. The little fuzzy stripped sock-covered feet. The round face and curly hair. The look of total innocence and wonderment.

January 30, 2021. I miss those days. I miss those looks and giggles and that size I could scoop up in my arms and cuddle with on my lap. I miss those days where he was filled with nothing but hope and curiosity. Today, he lays in his bed, still asleep as I’d imagine most boys about to turn 13 are doing on this rainy Saturday morning. I think of the 3 of us in our little family, it is Declan who has been most adversely affected by the pandemic, and it rips my heart out. I continue to wrestle over my decision to not send him into his 1st year of secondary school because of the pandemic; to keep him home to protect his very high risk brother and me, his high risk mother. He’s missed out on so much being home, not just academically, but socially, and I see the regression. Yet, if he lost me or his only sibling to COVID19, I still believe that would be an even greater loss for him. A loss, or losses, he could never recover.

And so, I will try not to wrestle so much with my decision…but it is hard not to do.

When I can get the vaccination (assuming it’s shows safe for people with an auto-immune disease), I will send him back into school. At least, that’s my plan now. If Brendan Bjorn can’t be vaccinated, that will mean I’ll have to keep the boys apart, and that will be utterly devastating. They love each other dearly.

But I know it’s time that Declan needs to take the next step in his life, to move from that cot to the toddler bed, to move from being a young boy to being a young man.

Time will tell, as it always does.