When my firstborn little girl was diagnosed with a disability I started to doubt a lot of what I thought I knew about the world. I am a rule follower by nature and had mistakenly thought that if I followed all the “shoulds” and “should nots” during pregnancy that I would deliver a perfectly healthy little person. How naïve! Even though I never would have admitted to this, I think that in some part of my mind, I believed that bad things did not happen to good people. Now I look back and think that I was so young and unaware that life is definitely not all so easily defined or understood.
My precious, sweet little toddler named Luci might not ever have a conversation with me, she might never go to college, she might never get married, she might never tell me that she loved me. It was almost too much to bear in the beginning, and I will tell you that it took me to my knees. I really doubted God and His purpose in giving Luci to us. I was so overwhelmed by the feelings of guilt, despair, and just wondering what I needed to do to help my little girl that I couldn’t take a step forward. It was during this time of personal darkness for me that I held on to one truth. The truth was that the little girl I loved with all my heart going into doctor appointments, tests, and assessments was the same little girl that was riding home in my car with me after the devastating news and diagnosis. Many doctor appointments came and went with more bad news and discouragement. But as I would look in my rearview mirror and see Luci’s beautiful little face staring out the window from her car seat, I would remind myself of the one thing that I did know, I loved that little girl with my whole heart before the doctor appointment and I was driving home with the same little girl that I loved with my whole heart. No matter what a doctor said, I had Luci and I loved her beyond a diagnosis that didn’t define her. She was just my little girl, and for those long rides home, I would find comfort in the one thing I knew for sure.
