Weathering the storm together

The car was silent.

After a hard morning, of carrying tantrumming limbs back to the car after another failed outing, of soothing one child when trying to reason with another, of trying to give space, doubting your methods, turning on each other instead of coming together.

The screaming from the back seat was still echoing in my ears but it was silent.

My husband pointed ahead at some dust storm, trying to slice the air with conversation. I acknowledged it was windy and couldn’t help but feel like the same storm was in the car with us.

The one that pushes you apart even though the sun is peeking through.

The one that makes it hard to see sometimes.

That makes it hard to remember yesterdays weather.

Parenting has been our biggest blessing, there’s nothing that we love more and there’s nothing that has challenged us more either.

And for us, there is so much learning about parenting a child with a different set of needs.

It isn’t linear and we’re always wanting to do better, to be better.

Forever depleted and complete.

And it happens so quickly, the centre of our universe wasn’t just us.

Life suddenly got tipped upside down and things became hard to catch, but we caught each other.

And held each other, even if only for a second at a time.

We day dream over the dinner table after a long day.

We smile at the little laughter that becomes music.

We look into each other’s eyes to see the wall behind us.

We make sense of thoughts only later.

But we love this world we’ve created, a second nature that we’re still learning how to live in.

A beautiful future that invited us in long ago.

They’re the reason we have so much to talk about, and sometimes nothing at all.

The reason we get out more and the reason we stay home.

Our reason for everything.

The reason for the storm in the car.

Closer than ever and some days a long distant best friend.

But one I can still lean on, across oceans.

***

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