A few days after living a brief stretch of life with no margins, and right before I was to pick up my little 4 year old granddaughter to go play at the park for the morning, I backed my beautiful Toyota 4-Runner into the trailer hitch of a parked truck. I plowed right into it, hard.
I was in a hurry. I was stressed. The truck is not usually parked there during a weekday morning. Bottom line is, I just didn’t see it.
But the moment I heard the crunch of my bumper I instinctively knew the mistake I had made. I felt it first in the depths of my stomach. Instant nausea.
By the time I had settled Shiloh into her carseat for our morning adventure, I had already experienced a whole range of emotions that usually accompany an unwelcome, unfortunate event.
Before pulling out of her driveway, I was doing a series of breathing exercises that work to help me calm myself in times of intense or unpleasant emotion.
“Why are you breathing like that, Honey?” she asked.
I explained what had just happened.
“Honey is sad, and I’m trying to help myself feel better.”
“It’s okay to feel sad,” Shiloh informed me simply.
“Yes, it is. But I don’t really like to feel sad. I am just trying to let myself stay in the emotion for awhile, to sit with it and really feel it and just let it hurt for a little while,” I said, as much to myself as to her.
“Well,” she said empathetically, “I know what makes me feel better when I’m sad. Hugs. Giving hugs and getting hugs makes me feel better. Do you need a hug, Honey?”
That made me smile and laugh out loud at the same time.
“Yes, Baby Girl, I believe I do.” The Doctor is definitely in.
That is the wonder of doing life with a child. They just live so practically in-the-moment all the time. It’s so inspiring.