Photographs by Sara Parsons Photography
It’s 2 a.m.
In the darkness, I see my phone light up.
“Who else is up? Over here treating a low.”
I text back, “Correcting a high and changing peed sheets. Life is so glam!”
***
One year ago, I was swallowed by depression after our 4-year-old was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.
It was on the 4th floor of the PICU at Children’s Hospital that I felt a line being drawn in front us: life before diagnosis and life after. This disease is isolating, and that invisible line would become a dichotomy for all the relationships in our lives. Friends spoke words of kindness and sympathy, but those words felt empty. Those words lacked any sustenance to heal my heart. No one could understand. No one could relate. And I began to drown in grief.
In the next 24 hours, my Instagram was flooded with well wishes, but two comments from two different strangers stood out.
“Let him get mad. Let yourself get mad, too. My son Henry was diagnosed earlier this year. You will be okay.”
“Been there, been there, been there. The scariest! But know that the new normal will be normal so soon and you’ll have your boy back. That was us almost 2 months ago with our son Eddy.”
A life ring was thrown to me and I felt myself begin to surface. They reached for me. They pulled me out of the darkest of places. They told me we would survive, and I believed them because they too have stood in the same darkness.
Sara (mom to Henry) and Kacie (mom to Eddy) quickly became family. My husband and I were able to witness two families successfully navigating life after diagnosis. Two families that were not just treading water; they were thriving. Emails quickly tuned into text messages, and text messages soon became phone calls. Today, their names are spoken in our home as regularly as our own.
***
Sunshine is pouring into our kitchen as I draw insulin out of the vial and fill Angus’s insulin pump. I’m bouncing a baby on my hip, flipping grilled cheese sandwiches, and dodging children as they gallop on stick ponies through this small space. Angus stops mid-gallop and stares at the faces on our fridge: Henry and Eddy.
“I just really love them, mama.”
“Who? Your buddies? It’s pretty neat to have friends that are just like you, huh?”
“You mean, because they’re superheroes, too?”
It has become clear to me that the life ring tossed to me just over a year ago didn’t save just me; it saved my family. They told us we would survive, and we did.
I am tethered to these women; to these families. This kinship was formed because of a diagnosis, but it is bound by an affinity for one another. Diabetes brought me to them, but diabetes is not keeping me here—love is.
This essay was published in Mamalode's 20th print magazine, themed Better Together. Click here to purchase your own copy!
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