This year brings us new hopes, new adventures, new places to live and work, and all of that brings new information, new anxieties and new joys.  But the best part is, we are still here.  And we are stronger than ever.

After a really lovely Christmas with our whole families, we are grateful that West Coast son made it all the way across the country to come home for Christmas. Seeing all of our children together with all grandparents, was magical.

Our children are the one collective thing we are most proud of.  Yet when one is ill, it is like that lovely mobile, which has that little glitch, that tiny broken wing of the butterfly, and once ponged the whole mobile is tilted, unguarded, looking unstable, waiting to just … fall.  And yet all of the rest of the pretty mobile is lovely, fragile, but lovingly staying together with that collective strength that makes the whole thing just flow.

This year we said hello to a new hospital in Oklahoma, and goodbye to the old one in New Jersey.  This year we face more hope for recovery than we have seen since our Christopher was still in New York.  It means a lot of Skyping, a lot of phone conferences, a lot of letters, and a lot of travel.  But mostly it means a small dedicated team of Traumatic Brain Injury Specialists who will work because they want to save him.  Big difference between private enterprise and the alternative.

And yet the state of New Jersey is the gift that keeps on giving, as a really kind and generous friend summed it all up for us.  We have had so many problems that all I do is write letters, and go to meetings, and check with our attorney.  Seriously?  Shouldn’t you all just be glad that you finally did the right thing for our family and got our boy into a really good hospital with a really good team of brain injury certified specialists?  I sum up the problems this way, I think of Hamlet: “One may smile, and smile, and still be a villain.”

My favorite thing about the new hospital is the therapy dog, Levi, he is beautiful.  I am so happy that Christopher has him all week long, and their bond is so intense.  I was so worried because Levi is a light golden retriever, much like Taylor and Savannah, our Goldens from way back when.  I was worried Chris would have problems bonding after losing two of our favorite family members.  But that didn’t happen.  Phew.

I took a break from this blog for a few months, but I need to get back into it.  Grief overwhelms me for the things I cannot change, yet bright futures are in the works.  Our past is filled with a tremendous loss, but the tragedy of the recent shooting on Valentine’s Day washed me out of a blind dismay that I couldn’t put into words.  There is no simple answer, but we will fight this, we will survive and we will know the difference between that which we can change, and that which we cannot.