Lately, Isaac’s sleep schedule has been crazy. It’s always been crazy….just not this crazy. After hours of playing in his dark room, he finally will drift off anywhere between the hours of 3am-8am. This kid loves to be awake at night and sleep during the day. He is nocturnal at heart. Ironically, things got much worse once we tried an additional sleep medication. We do get points for trying.
With the intense sleep struggles, Brian and I have been taking turns going to church with our other 3 boys. Last week, it was my turn to stay home with Isaac. After he woke up, I had the thought to take him to one of our favorite nature preserves in Homer IL. At Homer Lake, a sloping hill rises to look over a sparkling lake and a “natural playscape” for the kids. It is on this hill where we park the red wagon and lay a picnic blanket under a large oak tree. Isaac loves to bring his portable keyboard, lunchbox, a variety of fidget toys, a whiteboard, and a color by number book with his collection of 50 Crayola markers. He loves to sit on his hill under his tree with his red wagon with all his things. My other guys love the playscape which includes a smattering of large boulders to climb, fallen logs arranged in a bed of mulch to romp on, a sand pit, a rope spiderweb, and a small structure built around a tree we call the “birdhouse.” The crowning feature is a man made creek originating at the top of the hill in a small pool which flows down to empty into the lake after spilling over several small waterfalls along the way. We have spent countless hours here and have created a myriad of memories on this patch of land.
I arrived first at Homer Lake with Isaac and waited for Brian to bring our other boys to join us. When he came, I busted out popsicles for the younger boys and Brian carried the camping chairs up the hill. As Jonny, Levi and Kai made makeshift boats out of sticks, pieces of bark, reeds, leaves and other odds and ends to race down the creek into the Lake, I sat next to Brian on my camp chair and reached for his hand. I glanced over at Isaac, content with his keyboard under his tree and watched our boys gleefully racing their boats, and then I looked down at our hands. Our hands. Multiple purple scars speckled our hands and scabs over new marks had formed. It caused me to pause and reflect on the journey we are on. Unexpectedly, I felt a gentle shift in my heart. I am, of course, saddened by these marks for they are marks inflicted by my boy with raging emotions triggered by a reeling brain. They inherently symbolize pain. His and ours. But they also symbolize healing. And for us, they have come to symbolize love. They are marks we have endured because we love him. And we are not going anywhere. We will collect scars for him along with a thousand joyful triumphs. And we will make space for every bit of it. Every part of his mortal journey is infused with ours. What a privilege to care for a soul so special as his. This shift in my heart settled on a tender bed of gratitude that my husband and I are doing this together, hand in hand.
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