There is a box in my house. It's a smallish, slightly beat up, square cardboard box, but what this box holds is truly amazing; This box holds hope, wisdom, inspiration and mostly this box holds love.
Let me start at the beginning.
Right after I found out I was pregnant in the spring of 2011, I started scouring the internet for mommy stuff. I stumbled upon a blog that I quickly became obsessed with the blogger's strength of message and the empowerment she found in motherhood captured my imagination, I had discovered The Feminist Breeder. I read her blog daily , looking for snippets of inspiration and information from an empowered mommy, just like I wanted to be.
Then, the unimaginable happened.
During an induced labor by brain sprung a large leak, causing a clot which forced my brain to one side of myskull, paralysing my left side and making this fast talker and thinker slowed down in both departments, luckily, that baby I had been learning to take care of through this blogger whom I admired so much came through the ordeal unscathed, but, I was left unable to breast feed as much as I wanted to (due to my many medications) and I was unable to care for this new life as fully as I had anticipated.
Knowing I was going to heartbroken by this unexpected turn of events, my good friend, and soul sister, Sheila, knowing how obsessed I was with TFB(The Feminist Breeder) got in touch with her, hoping she might contact me to give me some encouragement. Then my dream came true, GinaTFB contacted ME on Facebook, wanting to know how she could help, she and I came up with a plan, her idea, really; A greeting card campaign. She put up a post about ME asking her readers to send me words of encouragement, well, I didn't know what to expect out of this venture, but the cards, letters and even a CD or two came flooding in, I got over 90 pieces of mail from women all over the world, these women told me stories about relatives who had been touched by stroke, their own personal stories about difficult pregnancies, they told me how lucky Charlotte was to have me in her life, how important I was, regardless of how much I was able to do.
But, mostly these women sent messages of love.
All of those cards are in that magical box, which I busted open today. I was touched, at the time these cards came in, I felt hopeless and useless, they came at the darkest point of this journey, the point where I felt my entire life was falling away through my fingers, the point where if I had given up, that was when I was going to.
BUT
I got letters from The Netherlands, New Zelaand, England etc..from all over.
How could I give up when all of these people were rooting for me and believed that I was fully capable of doing this? I couldn't. So, I didn't. The contents of that box truly changed the game for me, words of kindness from complete strangers, reminding me that life is worth hanging on for.
I'm glad I listened
