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epiphany

13 Comments

epiph-a-ny : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something

It was supposed to be a practice session. She’d gone through the healing touch training and wanted to try out what she learned. I’d been sick for weeks, and she offered to come over one night, hoping it might help the morning sickness lift.

But after she stepped back out into the winter cold and I wrapped back up in blankets on the couch, I stared into the fireplace and realized with absolute clarity. That it wasn’t nausea or vomiting or endless exhaustion that needed healing.

It was fear. Fear that we’d lose the baby again. Fear that I’d never make it to another delivery day. Fear that something was doomed to go wrong.

All of a sudden I saw that the hardest part of this nine-month journey would never be a burden of the body. It was all in the heart.

. . .

epiph-a-ny : a Christian festival held on January 6 in honor of the coming of the Magi to the infant Jesus Christ

“Mommy, why is tomorrow the last day of Christmas?”

Because it’s Epiphany.

“What does Epiphany mean?”

It’s when you see something amazing, that you never saw before.

“So why is January 6th called Epiphany?”

Because it’s the day the three wise men came to visit baby Jesus. They had never seen something amazing like that before.

“So tomorrow we will sing ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ but then on January 7th we will sing regular grace for dinner?”

Yes, that’s right. Because it’s the last day of Christmas, we still get to sing the Christmas songs.

“We should sing ALL the verses. That’s what we should do for Epiphany.”

We should.

We should sing all the songs we know by heart. For all the things we’ve never seen before.

. . .

epiph-a-ny : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

For weeks the meteorologists have been worrying and warning about the cold. Record-breaking. Life-threatening.

When the temperature finally plummeted last night and the negative numbers on the kitchen thermometer were enough to make me shiver, I listened as the radio host reveled in the jaw-dropping wind chills. The coldest in two decades.

That’s when it hit me. I’ve only lived here for ten years.

Tomorrow would be the coldest day of my life. When can we ever hyperbolize with absolute truth?

Even though I hate the cold, I smiled to myself as I flipped off the radio and turned upstairs for bed. Tomorrow I would see something I had never seen before.

. . .

epiph-a-ny : a revealing scene or moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way

As soon as we stepped into the dim room, my throat tightened with the memory: the two of us walking down a long, cold hospital hallway, the smell of freshly mopped linoleum and medicinal hand foam as we passed through the doorway, the blond-haired ultrasound tech waiting for us with kind eyes and a gentle voice.

Too much like the last time.

She poured warm gel from the squeeze bottle in a slow circle on my round belly. The grainy grey and black images began to blur and blink as she spun the wand around, trying to find the baby.

I wanted to look and I wanted to look away and I wanted everything to look right.

And suddenly, like a signpost in a swirling blizzard, the face slowly emerged from the whirling snow on screen: eyes, nose, lips. Two tiny hands trying to cram themselves into one small mouth.

All the fear evaporated as quick as a puff of breath into January cold.

I never believed women who said they fell in love so suddenly, when the lines on the test turned positive or the doctor placed the baby in their arms. But there it was.

I was absolutely smitten with what I saw.

Why this one, this second chance, this third child would make my heart leap like cloud nine, I’ll never know. Maybe because even though we had come here today – through bitter cold and biting wind and every wise voice warning us to stay home – hoping to find exactly this, I was still astonished to discover it before my own eyes.

Love in the humblest, smallest, most unlikely place.

Everything changed.

baby

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Comments

  1. Abbey @ Surviving Our Blessings says

    6 January 2014 at 8:40 pm

    There is so much beauty and truth here. I feel like I just exhaled for the first time in weeks. I’m still waiting for a glimpse of our little one, but I can just imagine the warm flood of relief and love you felt…thanks for sharing this.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      10 January 2014 at 2:30 pm

      Thank you for these words, Abbey. You nailed it – I feel like I let out the breath I’ve been holding for months. I know there is never anything certain on this journey, but I still have to savor the small moments of hope & joy. I hope you will get to see your glimpse soon.

      Reply
  2. amanday@q.com says

    6 January 2014 at 9:54 pm

    A beautiful epiphany!

    Reply
  3. Molly (@MollyMakesDo) says

    6 January 2014 at 11:17 pm

    Beautiful – we’re still waiting for the chance to see a picture like this again after our two losses last year. But it’s beautiful no matter what.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      10 January 2014 at 2:32 pm

      Molly, I’m so sorry to hear about your two losses. I will keep you and your family in my prayers. Thank you for stopping & sharing your story here.

      Reply
  4. Lauren says

    7 January 2014 at 10:04 am

    I just looked at that picture again and it took my breath away. Amazing. I love you, and I’m holding you, F., and your boys in my heart.

    epiph-a-ny: learning to trust that which is miraculous, that which simply cannot be yet is

    Reply
    • Laura says

      10 January 2014 at 2:33 pm

      Lauren – thank you. As ever. And for reminding me of the abundance of small miracles, even in darkness.

      Reply
  5. Ginny@RandomActsofMomness says

    8 January 2014 at 8:01 pm

    The Christmas season — all of it — is so different when seen through the lens of motherhood, isn’t it? I loved this gorgeous reflection and the photo of your little one. Blessings on you and your family!

    Reply
    • Laura says

      10 January 2014 at 2:34 pm

      Thank you, Ginny! And absolutely, it is a lens that changes each season and feast. And they change every year, based on where we and our children are, too. (I think we shall never be bored!)

      Reply
  6. Thrift Store Mama says

    10 January 2014 at 7:46 pm

    Wonderful.

    Reply
  7. Jennifer says

    28 August 2014 at 10:49 pm

    I have no words. I needed to read this so badly tonight. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
    • Laura says

      3 September 2014 at 10:57 pm

      Jennifer, I’m so sorry I missed your comment until just now. Your words brought me back to this post all over again, and it made me cry again to think of that day. A resurrection story when I needed it most. You are in my thoughts tonight.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. the best secret we’ve ever kept | mothering spirit says:
    24 May 2014 at 8:45 am

    […] on that freezing cold Epiphany day, we found out. And we both loved it. I will never forget the grin we shared in that dimly lit […]

    Reply

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I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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I have a habit of walking the ATL tunnels, but nev I have a habit of walking the ATL tunnels, but never made it to terminal T until yesterday. What I found stopped me in my tracks and spun my day around.

May we let ourselves be interrupted by joy and remember the beauty of being human.

Even in the least likely places.
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There are pockets of beauty in my life today that could not have existed if they had survived.

Acknowledging this does not mean I accept their loss. Or that I wouldn’t trade it all to have them here instead.

But the grieving know this strange, stubborn, saving truth: that goodness can grow in the gaping holes left by the ones we love.

I don’t know any simple ways to make sense of the hard times in which we’re living. As a porous soul, I feel it all and it breaks my heart, even as I cling to what I know is true.

But loving and losing my girls has taught me that life is both heart-breaking and resilient, that surviving is more complicated than we suspect, that most people are walking around shattered beneath the surface.

Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of it, searing as sunlight: the grief in someone’s eyes behind their anger, the burden sagging their shoulders, the past that’s poisoning their present. Few things have transformed my life more than learning to recognize pain in others.

Grief is a long letting go of a life you thought you’d have. Most of us are carrying more of it than we realize—or remember when we’re dealing with each other (especially when we’re tearing each other down).

Go gentle today. Practicing compassion and generosity of spirit will crack open more of the world and its confounding struggles. You might lose the satisfying clarity you clung to before life broke your heart in complicated ways, but you will find more of God in the messy, maddening middle.

I have learned this much from the garden I never planned to plant, from a version of life I never dreamed.
The Moment After Suffering By Jessica Powers (Sis The Moment After Suffering

By Jessica Powers (Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit)

Time’s cupped hand holds
no place so lenient, so calm as this, 
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and to admire such evidence of day.
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A morning meditation after a week of hard conversa A morning meditation after a week of hard conversations.
I bristle whenever I hear (well-meaning wise ones I bristle whenever I hear
(well-meaning wise ones say)

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Big kids, big problems.”

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May I learn to love them through whatever can’t be easily cleaned or smoothed or sorted.
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