Okay

I saw a lot of sad things in the past 48 hours. When I began my on-call shift on Friday night, I saw that it would be a difficult weekend, and made note to check the lunar calender the next time I'm choosing which weekend I'll be working. What is it with me and these full moons?

I won't go into the tremendously sad details. I will, however, hilight the wonderful ones. All weekend long, I saw loving families. Children excitedly laughing when their very sick baby brother smiled at them. Friends who gathered to welcome home a child who, at eight months old, had never seen his own nursery. A 6-year-old excitedly showing her artwork to her very sick uncle, who took one look at the construction paper, and beamed at his neice. The love and strength I witness, and knowing that I am helping them be able to stay at home and not at the hospital, fill me with such profound peace and a quiet joy that seeps into the sadness.

Each night, I put Oliver to bed. He falls asleep with his arms around my neck, his little breath steady and tickling into my ear, his head heavy on my shoulder. I have read in several parenting-help articles or books that you should put your baby in his crib when he is drowsy, but not all the way asleep, so that he can learn to drift into slumber on his own. This is one of the rules that I'm choosing to break. I need this time with him.

Every once in a while, before our weekly rounds where all of the nurses, social workers, physicians, and other team members do a thorough patient review, we take a few minutes to reflect, meditate, or be led through some guided imagery. We get good at closing our eyes and choosing a favorite place to go to in our minds, and notice what we see, hear, smell. My favorite spots tend to be a particular hammock nestled by a waterfall in Kaua'i, Hawaii, or a big, greeney meadow, with soft ground and no bugs crawling on me. But the other week, my mind brought me to a new favorite place. The glider in Oliver's nursery, with Oliver sleeping warm in my arms.

How remarkable it is to find comfort in my son. The little man looks to me to provide him with everything he could possibly need, love, protection, and help putting the nuk back in after he's woken up to find it gone (as happened two sentences ago). Yet holding him to me at the beginning and end of my days is what keeps me from falling apart. It's my sigh of letting go. It makes everything that happened in my day okay.