This is my first submission to The Life of B Photo Challenge. This quarter’s “April Squares” challenge is a celebration of ‘Tops’, so as a nice transition from her January ‘Light’ challenge, I’m entering my Hilltop Sunrise photo taken from Marginal Way in gorgeous Ogunquit, Maine. Ahhh, how I would love to be sitting on that bench with a cup of coffee right now! This particular weekend in March, we were on a college road trip to visit a first choice university up North. It was just after the bomb cyclone had settled off the coast of Cape Cod, so the ocean was incredibly powerful…
...and on Top of the Rocks!
When you experience that kind of power in nature, it’s a reminder that there is something… rather SomeONE greater than all of us, who created this universe and is able to handle all that we cannot control… especially now in these days of uncertainty.
I especially love the third picture in this challenge with the waves crashing against the rocks and my youngest daughter is standing in the front confidently, almost defiantly… unmoved by the thunderous surf. To fully appreciate the significance of this image, you have to understand that this has been a particularly tough season for my daughter. In January 2017, she sustained a concussion during a normal PE class at school. Another student threw a basketball across the gym, that struck her on the side of the head, and dramatically changed the course of her teen years. What we thought would resolve in a few weeks, evolved into considerable loss of her vision for the next six months. Our world completely shifted as I dropped everything to adapt all of her lessons to her academic needs at home with the help of a home teacher assigned by the county, just so we could get her across her academic finish line. Once her vision returned that summer, following intensive medical therapies and treatments by teams of doctors, nurses and various therapists, at Sinai Hospital and Kennedy Krieger Institute, her daily migraine headaches began to intensify. Finally in June 2018, after 3 days on ‘migraine cocktail’ IV’s at Johns Hopkins Pediatric Hospital, she experienced her first 24 hours of migraine relief in 17 months… Since then, she has continued treatment at Hopkins, Krieger and Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital to try to navigate her new life in the aftermath of her traumatic brain injury… still pushing through and managing the pain, still looking for solutions.
As her mother and her primary caretaker, you can imagine the range of emotions I have experienced. So in an odd way, with all that has recently rocked our world, I almost feel like I was prepared for this COVID-19 wave to hit. I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness or the impact this virus has had on individuals, our country or our world. I have simply learned how to roll with the challenges of unexpected happenings and unfolding circumstances. This is where we are… and we are all in it together. The sun will rise tomorrow, and we will start over with the new day, hopefully moving forward. And if we need to stop to take a breath, it’s okay…. take a moment… just don’t live there, and I mean that with love in my heart… Put on your fuzzy pajamas, eat a bucket of popcorn while you watch a movie that makes you laugh until you cry, then let it out, Sister… or Brother!… Let the rain… fall… dowwnnn… Then without touching your face with your ungloved hands, wipe your eyes with a tissue or your sleeve if you’ve run out of tissue… run a comb through your hair or polish that shine, slap on your good looks and step into the next day! You can do this… We all can do this… We need to do this for each other.
BellaZaria 