Beautiful World

I drove to the barn today, Sage Creek Equestrian, after being away for the last two weeks, missing my mare Trillium aka "Tess" and looking forward to my ride.  I wondered if I would even be able to ride due to the nasty cold/cough that has bothering me for the last week and a half.  I started feeling so bummed out, that I might not be able ride, that the closer I got the bummier I got.  Well, this is NO WAY to go to the barn!  So, I decided to turn on NPR and listen to something new, something to distract me from my blues.  

NPR has a great feature called "Talk of the Nation" that I like.  Anyway, they were interviewing a woman named Emily Rapp, a writer/teacher and mother.  It was her role as mother that began to strike a chord with me.  Emily, has a son named Ronan, a beautiful son, one that smiles, coos, cuddles, cries, and giggles.  However, Ronan has a disease called Tay-Sachs and will not live past his fourth birthday.

 As this woman, this mother, Emily Rapp discussed what it is like to parent a 18 month old terminally ill child, tears started streaming down my face.  All I could picture was how active little 18 month old boys are, running, rolling, giggling, tickling, exploring, studying and learning about how their world works, all I could see is how this little boy must be missing out.  But then Emily Rapp, his mother, said the thing that made this radio feature so much more personal for me than just your average interview. 
 "And, you know, I just want him to be surrounded by love for his whole life and he might be unique in the sense that he will only have ever experienced unconditional love his entire - for the whole span of his life. So I often think about that when the days are hard" - Emily Rapp.
I almost stopped the car.  "Unconditional love for the whole span of his life"  what would that look like? Feel like?  Be like?  To give that?  Here I drove to Heber City, feeling sorry for this mother and her baby boy only to discover that in a small way I envied them?????
Is that right?  Doesn't quite make sense--- now don't get me wrong, I don't want anything like that for my "little man" but I wonder what type of life that would be to live, one of unconditional love, and if you could offer that type of love to someone what type of person would that make you?  Does that make sense?  I hope so.  It makes me stop and think, Am I truly giving all my love, compassion, empathy, understanding, kindness and hope to all of those that I love?
The answer, sadly probably is no, but I can hope and strive that one day the answer to that question will be yes.
While I strive to be a better person and to hopefully learn from Emily Rapp's example I will enjoy the little things that Cole gives us everyday.  Such as this delightful photo shoot that was in prom-to during dinner tonight.  "Little Man" delighted in giving me his best silly grin every time I said "smile!"  I love that little guy, I love the little life that he gave me, I love being an important part of his beautiful world.