Why

Tonight I spent the evening, as I do many Wednesdays, with my (former?) in-laws. When I came home I was tired. I wanted a glass of wine and some internet surfing to ease the sting of having my decisions judged wanting. I wanted to stop thinking about what is going to happen when I go to school. To stop thinking about how I am going to swing seeing the in-laws with my new schedule, when what I would REALLY like to do is go back to seeing them WAY less often.

And then I read it. A random blog, reached through a series of links, about a family with a daughter Audrey's age who has cancer. It was eerily familiar. The tale of being sent home with a life expectancy of months. The return to the hospital and the swift ramping downward of the estimate of time left. The excessive sleeping, the morphine, the panic, the fear, the regrets. It was all there. Except this woman was talking about her baby.

My breath caught in my throat and my eyes filled. I walked (only due to a severe effort to prevent running) to check on my daughter. I sat in the dark until my eyes became accustomed and touched her back, definitely risking a wake up. Almost wishing for a wake up so that I could spirit her into my bed for cuddling and monitoring tonight. I listened to her breathe and tried not to imagine what my life would be like if she was taken from me too.

That is why. Why, despite my Mother in law's habit of annoying me, her disapprovals and the the loss of the precious time with which I could be doing something I find more rewarding and enriching, I will be finding a way for Audrey to spend time with her dad's parents. Because that was her baby who went through that. And that is her grandchild that hangs by a string that could easily be snipped by me. I will put up with a lot of things for her to have a relationship with them as long as it is mutually beneficial (for the in-laws and Audrey), even if the benefits don't always fall into my lap and the cost of the relationship is sometimes thrust on my shoulders to bear. Because she has lived that horror, and deserves the small amount of joy I can give her. How can I not give that when the only price is an afternoon of my time and some minor annoyance.