A (sort of) Homecoming

Coming home from Canada was tense, we all had our own worries running through our heads, luckily, both ferries had gift shops to distract us! I am now the proud owner of EVERY cute kitty beanie baby type thing imaginable. Plus lots of CANADA stickers.
We were starving as we went through customs, and hit the first restaurant we could find, took Logan's blood sugar in the truck, and calculated what we thought he'd eat, and gave him his HSP. (Horrible Stupid Pinch). Something happened in the restaurant I did not expect. As we were paying for our meal, the kids noticed those hateful little coin operated candy machines with M&M's in them and both asked with their most polite voices if they could please have some.
I explained to Logan that he could, but it would mean an extra HSP to cover the extra carbs.
I tensed, waiting for the meltdown, the rejection, the tears.. but he said. "Ok, Mommy, I will take my M&M's and go to the truck where you can give me the pinch."

Um. Wow.

Also, there was a family sitting near the front, two parents, two touslehaird kids, and one 11ish year old girl in a wheelchair. The kind where your legs, arms, and even chin and forehead are braced and strapped in just to keep you up. She was drooling, and being tube fed. I made eye contact with her, and smiled. Just outside the window I could see Logie, skipping, handful of M&M's.. heading to the truck with his twin. The girl in the chair did not respond.
I paid our bill and had a real serious moment of gratefulness, I bet that mom would give her life, if she could restore her daughter to health with 5 shots a day.

At one point in our deepest grief, we came to the realization that if this had happened 100 years ago, Logan would not survive. I saw for the first time, this skipping boy, as a gift of modern medicine, each day with him something other parents were deprived of in years past, and some now for different reasons. Watching he and Gray play tag in the grass outside the restaurant brought tears to my eyes again- we may have had a gift taken away, but I can touch, hug and feel the gift science has granted our family- Logan is with us.

I had a different outlook when I left the restaurant. Logan took the pinch like a champ, and we rambled on home.