We Ate Cookies

Last Monday came and went. Just another week day. Just another school day. Just another day at work. But we had cookies and milk and a family meeting after dinner. Because last Monday was a very special day in its own quiet way.

Last Monday was January 12. Exactly five years after the surgery that made me an amputee. Every year we have recognized the day, sometimes having cake, sometimes just exchanging comments.

"Another year...can you believe it?"
"Has it really been three years?...four?.."

But this year is somewhat of a milestone. Five years. Half a decade. Five years is a long time to have lived this new life. It was worth stepping back and reminiscing.

So we sat at the kitchen table together and shared cookies. We asked the kids if they remembered surgery day and if their (our) lives are the same or different from what they expected.

You'd think we might have gotten some deep revelations or honest confessions. But the answers we got pretty much sum up the success of this choice I made.

Nothing to report. Life pretty much as usual. This new life slowly but surely sunk in and became our new normal. As I got more mobile, life for them went back to what it used to be, but better. I have to lean on them much less. I have energy to do the things that I used to ask them to do. Running things to different parts of the house as I clean up. Hauling groceries in from the car.

They still help out, but its because I want them to learn responsibility. Not because I physically can't do it myself.

They have a mom who happens to have one leg. Just like other moms might have red hair or wear glasses, their mom has a leg that snaps on in the morning. And it's not really a big deal to them. In the best way possible, I'm 'just' their mom.

It has become our normal and it has become the saving grace I needed it to be. I got the bionic leg I have thought about, and wondered about, since I was just a kid myself. And it has given me back mobility that I hoped and prayed it would.

For five years I've officially been an amputee. My first five years in this new world. It went by fast. I am sure the second five years will fly by even quicker.

So for that one night last week we slowed down long enough to celebrate as a family. Celebrate a surgery that gave mom a more active life and gave us a new normal.

It was a day, and a decision, to celebrate. So we sat and talked. And we ate cookies.