Here it Is

One year ago tonight I said the words that earned me The Mom of the Year 2006 Award.

One year ago tonight Eliot felt like total crap and I kept going on and on about how he had a cold and now we were all going to get a cold and how Christmas was going to suck because we'd all be sick. Eliot had had a hard week and a really hard weekend. He had whined and cried and wouldn't leave my side.

One year ago Eliot wore his red-footy pajamas all day. He woke up in the morning with weird purple-y blue marks under his eyes.

One year ago today we skipped church because Eliot was just too crabby to go.

And one year ago tonight when my parents and sisters and brother in law and niece and nephew all celebrated an early Christmas and I was trying to be a good hostess and Eliot wouldn't leave me alone I said, rudely, "It could be worse Eliot, you could have cancer."

One year ago tonight I didn't know that leukemia is totally curable. I didn't know Clare from the cancer clinic, or Dr. Mulroony who we met at the hospital or Dr. Troy Lund who has been with us since that first day of the hospital and will be an amazing doctor whenever they let him loose. We didn't know our doctor Dr. Burke who looks nothing like the doctor who got kicked off Grey's Anatomy. We didn't know all of the amazing nurses on 5B.

One year ago today I didn't know that Eliot was the bravest person I'd ever know. I didn't know what 6-MP or dexamethazone or bactrim or miralax or methotrexate were. I didn't think I could ever live through the horror of watching a child be hospitalized, or anesthetized (I literally thought about that less than a week before Eliot was admitted to the hospital).

I didn't know that I actually wasn't the fattest I've ever been. I didn't know that I could actually live through really having no sleep.

I didn't know that I actually can ask for help. I didn't know the length people will go to to support me and my family. I had no idea how many people spread so far around the world would pray for us. I didn't know anything about prayer.

Sometimes, lately, I wonder if I knew anything a year ago. Mostly, lately, I realize we never, ever, know whats going to happen the next morning. Not really. We just don't know.