Coping

Coping. How do you live knowing that your child could have a lifelong battle with a health condition? How can you enjoy the good times knowing that scary things may be around the corner? Here is how we explain it to friends.

I sometimes imagine our daughter’s health condition as a rain cloud. We can’t predict the weather but we know it will come and go. Sometimes the cloud is far away on the horizon. Sometimes it is pouring down on our heads.

The important thing for us to remember and for friends to realize two things:

Knowing that it is going to rain again some day doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy the sun every day it is shining. In fact, it makes us appreciate it that much more.

When the cloud is directly over us, it is okay to feel miserable. At the same time, we need to remind ourselves that it is sunny somewhere, and that the rain has always passed before.