Parenthood. It all started out so simply. A blank canvas of wonderful plans, hopes and dreams. Nothing but a future full of potential — potential that I had filled with my own ideas of how it would be.
But then something happened. And then something more. Shadows on my crisp white sheet of parenting plans. Marks from an unexpected pen. I scrambled frantically, trying to wield it all back toward the pattern I had been so carefully crafting.
But it was out of my hands. Our world buckled and folded as my husband and I watched — disbelief, fear and grief heavy on our hearts.
Loss. Loss of so very many things. So many hopes snipped away before they could even begin to be cherished. News, diagnoses, speculations — on and on they came, cutting away until my heart bled dry.
The pieces of me were left scattered. And it hurt. And I grieved. When I looked around me, I saw the wreckage of a dream, of a family, of me.
But then I noticed something among the wreckage. Something that didn’t look like wreckage at all.
Not an accident of untold grief and tragedy, but something special. Something carefully planned and crafted — and not by my hand.
A child. A special, brilliant, beautiful child. Placed with design and purpose in my hands — gifted to me.
And there is still pain. There is still grief. There is still fear. Only now I realize that I have a choice. I can look at the holes in my pattern — I can focus on all that I have lost. Those blank missing pieces, the new marks and shadows of things yet to come. They are still there and I can choose to fix my gaze on them and grieve if I wish. Sometimes I do.
But when I do, I miss what is there. The beauty in-between the missing pieces. The beauty made possible because of those missing pieces. It is there — just as real and rare and beautiful as any snowflake. I just have to choose where to look.
Every year, my beautiful little miracle girl requests paper snowflakes for her room during the Christmas season. The ones you see above were crafted from free patterns that can be found at papersnowflakes.com. The instructions for folding the four-sided snowflakes can be found here and the instructions for folding the six-sided snowflakes can be found here.
What about you? Leave us a comment and let us know where you have seen beauty beyond the ordinary…
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that was so beautiful thank you for writing it!
I really needed this today. Thanks!
wow! that was so amazingly eloquent and rich. i love your analogy of using the snowflake. thank you for sharing that with us.
Michelle, that made me teary-eyed. Thank you for sharing this post.
That was very beautiful!
I would like to share a little something.
I have a three yr old little guy, he is non verbal for the most part, but understands everything. He loves Thomas, and the other day while watching it, he was grunting, I looked over and asked..”whats wrong?” He just looked at me…I went back to what I was doing and he was grunting again. I finally figured it out. The Thomas song was on and he was singing along. Now whenever he watches it he will “sing” along and he just loves it when I say, “Nice singing buddy”.
That was so beautiful Michelle.
That was truly inspirational. I love the way you linked your words to the pictorial representation.
Beautiful! Thank you!
So beautiful. Thank you so much.
What a beautiful analogy, I love how you put your thoughts into such eloquent words. I can very much relate to this too.