Gratitude

Will participated in his first Kindergarten / Parish School holiday performance and if you ask me he totally rocked it, of course, I'm rather partial.

I absolutely LOVED the way they did the performance - it wasn't holiday or Christmas music but it was all songs about being thankful, gratitude and appreciating everything that's special. I had to really work hard not to break down and sob the entire time.

Will and two other friends were asked to welcome the audience; it was an extremely proud moment for me. Being able to celebrate all these little normal things - I am just overwhelmed sometimes with how normal it feels.

Will and his friend "C" apparently were two of the kiddos who enjoy performing, singing and attempting to memorize the songs the most - that or they just like to be really loud. One might say they feel quite at home on the stage. Will, however, often seemed to remember his words just slightly before or slightly after the words were said. He also used his loud singing voice so the end result was this hilarious loud yelling of words usually before or after they were meant to be said. It was exactly him.

I know I've said this before but every day we get to experience something like this with Will feels like a huge gift. When we received his diagnosis in July 2011, it was just incredibly hard for me to envision him every being able to do something like this.

My inner dialogue in my head usually goes something like this...
WOW, my kid is awesome. I'm so proud of him. He's doing such an amazing job.

Uh, can someone please explain to me if this diagnosis is really true? I mean look at him he is doing awesome, he is able to speak clear enough now to actually speak into a microphone and welcome an audience full of people.

Uh, okay, Lori, it's true. You saw it in black and white. You don't need to go home and pull out the blood work or MRI results where it says his brain tissue is dead and dying.

Death. How am I going to handle this? I can't and won't. Sometimes this takes a long tangent down a dark road.

Oh look at my boy up there singing his heart out. Live in the moment. Get a grip. He is so happy. We are so happy. We have an amazing life.

No wonder why I totally spaced out and only videotaped a few blurps of each song. I was trying to get my head together.

This is Will exiting the stage. I am only posting a picture from the welcome portion of the concert because I don't know if all the other families, especially those we don't even know, would appreciate their child's photo put on a blog. His little friends are all just so cute and fun to watch too.

Since I am not doing pics from the concert, here is one with my mom and Will afterwards. We, along with Neil took Will to an "adult" lunch outing after the concert. You could tell he felt VERY VIP.