That kind of joy

And still, it seems, I don't have much to say. Of course I do it is just a matter of how to phrase it. For the joy of Emma seems to have transformed. It used to come in a well timed breeze, a knowing look, a song on the radio, a creative moment. She still does, arrive in these intangible ways, yet there is more.

For the longest time I intentionally separated her potential being from the two other vibrant ones skipping through my home. It was a habit, I think, begun over seven years ago when a lab tech said the three words I desparetly didn't want to hear; "It's a girl"! His face radiated good news. My brain immediately began it's training: You will not compare. You will not wonder. You will not saddle this girl with the ghost of her sister. You will not project unknown expectations. You will not. You can not. How could I not?

I spent years fighting mind-spinning urges, like smoke as it entwines with itself, creating yet another stream, another answerless possibility. I beat the ideas away, inwardly chanting She is her own person. She is her own person.

If I went down that road I wouldn't be able to stop. If I allowed the train of thought my journey would cease to be in the present. A single, I wonder if... would have launched me back to a hot summer night when my labor cries failed to produce the same from my baby.

Her nose. Were they the same? Her fingers. Were they long like Emma's? From there, it would only have been a quick and seamless leap to her temprament. Did they share a love of 'aloneness', needing only to be swaddled tightly and placed in her crib to put themselves to sleep? And on, and on, I would have gone.

That road, that dangerous trecherous road was one I knew I could not walk. So I didn't. It was self-preservation. And yet, I did myself a disservice. By setting that roadblock I masked the ability to see that Emma and her sisters may have shared traits while still maintaining their indiviuality. Alive or dead, this is the truth.

Moreover, by refusing walk on paths thay may intersect Bear's joy's were isolated as were Comedian's, as Emma's contined to be etherial, intangible, mine.

As of late this has shifted. Without a conscious effort I've noticed how she lives within them, within their play, their moments of elation, and in their tears of dissapointment. She is not just in the breeze, but in their movements, the manurisims. Of course, I cannot know with any certainty what is 'hers' vs 'theirs', but it seems not to matter. Not anymore.

I suppose this is the integration I speak of so often. Whatever it is, it feels good. My children, all three of them, live in this home. They inspire me. The educate me. They love me. They are all mine, however they exist.