January 13, 2019

One more hurdle jumped over- Matthew now knows. Telling him wasn’t terrible at all like I thought it would be. We called it our first official family meeting. He was excited for this because everyone had something they wanted to talk about. First Matthew went and he wanted to talk about the stars. He told me what he knew about stars and asked me questions about stars and it was a very fun discussion. Jason said he wanted to talk about how much he loves all of us and told us all what he loves about each one of us. Then it was my turn. I took a deep breath and said it plain and simple - mommy has a little boo boo and I pointed to the area of where it is. My wonderful compassionate son that he is said here mommy I’ll make it feel better. He held out his hand to rub my boo boo. I thanked him and hugged him and then explained a little further that this boo boo is actually making mommy a little sick. He said oh no mommy do you have a tummy ache?? I said sometimes I could. I said you know how you get a sore throat and we go to the doctor to get checked and sometimes we get medicine to make you all better? Well mommy is going to have to go to a doctor to get very special medicine and it will make me all better but this medicine might make some funny things happen. I might be really really tired and want to sleep a lot, I may get a tummy ache, and you know something really funny? It’s going to make mommy’s hair look a little bit different. It’s going to make some of mommy’s hair even come out and I may have hair as short as you and then maybe none at all, as I laughed and slapped my leg to make light of it. I paused to gage my next sentence off of his response or reaction. Matthew sat there looking at me with this surprised, wide eyed, straight lipped face and simply said, well that’s weird. I said yeah it’s pretty weird right? And we laughed. I said so mommy might not have hair. That’s ok right? But I’m still mommy and nothing else about me or us changes.  And  I’ll have these really pretty head scarves and hats and maybe I’ll even get a wig- and I explained what a wig is. Then I said that I had bought a special head scarf already and it’s white and I bought fabric markers because I thought it would be fun for us or for you to decorate it for me. And then when mommy goes to get her special medicine I’ll always wear it. His eyes lit up. Yes! He’s said I’ll make suns and hearts and roses and flowers and everything you love mommy and I’ll write my name and your name so you’ll always have it. He is just simply the best boy. Best best boy. Then I said you know what’s even better? We are going to have so much help here. If mommy is a little tired or not feeling well and can’t help out in the house much and daddy needs a little help we’ll have so many people to help us. All of your grandparents and Aunt Lori and her family and  the rest of our family and friends. We will have so much help and we get to have people bring us dinner sometimes too. Isn’t that so cool?? Again his eyes lit up.  Now I know he obviously cannot truly comprehend anything that I said about me being sick and what the medicine will do but I have a very confident strong feeling that no matter what happens, Matthew will be ok. He’s strong and kind and compassionate and sweet and caring and everything else under the sun. I told him if he ever has any questions he can always ask and we spoke about who he could talk to about anything if he needed to. We also made certain that he knew that it’s nothing he can get sick with or catch and he seemed to understand that. And that was it. He hugged me and then we went back to playing, as he continued to jump and roll and play with Ryan, laughing, smiling. Not anything like I thought about how this conversation would go. I feel so much better.  Onto the next venture....