The Shot

      For all these years, I've said I feel the pain my children feel, their sadness is mine, their disappointment is mine, their joy is mine.  One of my daughters has been insulin-dependent since age two.  It hurt my heart so much giving her those injections.  When I'd cry,  she'd say, "It's not you, Mommy, it's the shot."  She was very brave and strong and must have worked quite hard all those years not letting me see her hurt.  That's quite a sacrifice seeing as I've always been known for wearing my heart, and pain, on my sleeve; I feel and express much of what's going on with me "in the moment." Not always such a good idea.  I have another daughter who's done weekly injections for her condition. That needle was quilte large; it looked like jabbing a pencil into your leg.
        Now that I have a daily injection for the next couple of years, I can say that my heart may have ached deeply for my children's hardships, but I can't know completely what they go through.  Giving myself a shot every day is a hard, unnatural thing to do  (and that's only one--nothing like the thirty blood tests Asha did each day during her pregnancy or the every-three-day rotation of her insulin pump site--a plastic canula is injected under the skin for continuous insulin delivery). Peter, my husband, did the first couple for me because I just couldn't press the needle into my leg.  I've done it once and felt quite silly getting all nervous and sweaty and afraid of doing it. I was upset that I just couldn't nonchalantly stick that puppy in there and move on to something else.  We take turns.
          So although I still think I still feel quilte a lot of what my daughters go through--illnesses, losing their sister, jobs, houses, worrying about their new babies (although they are all doing such great jobs as superwomen), I can't truly understand their pain completely--not exactly like they do, nor can they mine. I can also appreciate how our other two daughters worked so hard to make their sisters and their mom forget about the pain. For the next two years at least, I'll be thinking of my brave, wonderful girls who didn't want their mom to be hurt or ever see them hurting.
          I love my girls. MWAH. (And Peter, too.  Don't worry, Pete:  "It's not you, it"s the shot.)