6/8/17I heard your voice today. I saw your body move yesterday. I take note. Your stillness is your defining feature. Your silence is a crushing reality to which I’ve become accustomed. But there you were thrusting your leg outward and raising your arm upward with more force than I had seen since you were a baby. The noises you uttered were three deep moans in rapid succession as I put you in your stroller. Each caused me to immediately stop and stare, watching and fearing what may come next.The sounds and the movements were noticeable because they broke through the quiet. Noticeable because they signal a change. I wish it were a positive change, a sign that you had something to say. I know it is a sign of regression. Your movements and voice are controlled by a brain that is slowly losing the ability to function. Your brain is misfiring sending out signals that your body struggles to interpret.Your eyes, once the vibrant window to your soul, are now the clues to your seizures. Your eyelids perpetually half mast. Your pupils traveling in separate directions. The new movements and sounds come alone with fluttering eyelids and an occasional quiver of your body. They aren’t the seizures of the movie screen. These are small, private, beginner seizures. They are the ones that teach me how to control my reaction. How to hold you so that you continue breathing. How to remind myself to also keep breathing. We are all but assured that there are more seizures to come.I prepare myself for how I will meet them, but for the moment I close my eyes and think only that today I heard your voice and yesterday I saw you move. Noticing something so small shows me how small my world has become and how intimate a relationship we have. I write it down so I can place that small moment of your small life into the big world. I share it so others will pause and find value in the smallest of their mundane moments. I feel the impact of your small movements in your small life and it's big enough to imprint your soul in my heart for eternity.
A Break in the Silence