Life is good

A couple of saturdays ago I got up early and left for work for a few hours. I left Tracy and Gracie to spend the morning together and went to see a little girl (For the first time) who struggles with really intense anxiety/fear... that her mother is going to die and her father is going to leave. It is no wonder since this little girl has moved at least 20 times in the past 2 years, has hardly attended school, has been homeless, and both of her parents struggle with pretty severe depression.

I drove up to the apartment complex where she was staying and drove past a 7-8 year old boy who was smoking a cigarette. I stopped my car and looked at him as I contemplated what to do and watched as he flicked the cigarette and ran away from me. He was out of sight before I knew it, and I went on to my destination to see my client, a beautiful scared little girl.

When I talked with this little girl she brought a little binder out that she carries with her everywhere. She has had it since kindergarten and it holds mementos/memories of the things she has done in the past several years. She doesn't have other things that little girls do....like toys, pets, etc, but she had this binder full of papers. These weren't papers her mother or father saved, but papers that she saved and took with her no matter how many apartments, shelters, schools she went to. With pride, she showed me a some homework she saved from kindergarten as well as several stories she has written in the past 3 years about princesses that live in big beautiful castles with their own rooms and lots and lots of cats. Every story was almost exactly the same and most of the cats were cats she had left behind during any one of the many moves her family has made in the past several years.

I explained to this little girl what we do in therapy and that it is a place/time for her to talk about anything she needs or wants to. She talked and talked...and talked about her stories and her homework she saved until I HAD to go. She continued to talk with me until the door closed behind me and I am PRETTY sure I could have stayed all day and allowed her to talk. Through our conversation it seemed as though this little girl was not only day dreaming about all the things she saw as beautiful and magical(castles, princesses), but that she was trying to communicate how much she wanted stability...a bedroom that doesn't change, pets that stay with her as she grows, to know that her parents would be o.k.......

As I drove home, as I usually do, I thought about some of the assignments I could do with this little girl, the topics I would bring up in therapy to help her talk about her fears....I was SAD for all the things that she has been through in so few years of life.

.....Then I drove up to my house and found my sweet little girl and my husband...and a SNOWMAN in the front yard, very cold, and very wet. Gracie was wearing her halloween bug hat and some of Tracy's gloves that were soaked completely through. Tracy was putting some charcoal (For the BBQ) on the snowman to make buttons and eyes. They were having SUCH a good time. After taking a picture, I hurried them inside and made them lunch and HOT chocolate and I took a moment to just be GRATEFUL. Life IS SO good and I am so blessed.