Miracles Mowing the Lawn

I looked out the window tonight and saw my husband teaching Jim to mow the lawn. It quite unexpectedly made me cry, I mean really cry, not just the sweet tender tear sliding down my cheek cry, but the gut wrenching, blubbering, sobbing but good kind of cry.  I never thought I would see Jim mowing the lawn. It was too dangerous to let a kid who has multiple seizures daily mow the lawn, or cook on the stove, or be alone, or swim, or walk to school alone, he even needed someone in the room with him when he showered.  But since his surgery he has not had even one seizure. I hadn't realized how much a part of our daily lives his seizures had become, how normal it seemed to me to jump up and catch Jim at any time, to walk behind him always making sure I was ready to break his fall. I still jump whenever I hear a thump or a bump, I still start to catch him when I see his arms move a certain way. It is almost and alien experience to just tell him to go take a shower and not  sit in the bathroom with him. Jim just turned eleven and it seems as if I am watching him mature years in the last few weeks since his surgery. He can be so much more independent and we are teaching him things I hadn't realized we were holding him back from doing. It never crossed my my to have him mow the lawn before, I didn't realize I was holding him back from it, so as I watched him mowing the lawn It made me realize what he had been missing and what he can do now.  It feels like he has been in a cage, he was in  the cage so long and it was built so gradually that I didn't truly realize how restrictive the cage was, we just dealt with it. But now he is free! and I can't tell you how good it feels to watch my son mow the lawn.