After a year of hard hard hard things to face, endure and somehow still find the courage to keep going, I chose to interview my girl for her birthday.  Christmas morning when I walked into the bathroom, I immediately had a smile on my face, a smile because I recalled Christmas morning 2009.  6 am I had walked into the bathroom with the awareness that I was in labor.

Memories of that day and many of the days after have not brought a lot of good feelings.  Instead, they have been hard, hard to relieve, hard to forget.

This year, this Christmas, instead of painful memories, God gave me a really good one.  One that was full of excitement, hope, and joy as I realized I was getting ready to welcome a new soul into the world.  I am thankful that is what He gave me.  Because I want to believe that is the new chapter we are getting ready to write as we leave behind this decade and getting ready to start a new one!  Goodbye sorrow, hello JOY

 

Ezzy May, I hope that as you read these blogs when you are older, you see that in my openness, in my willingness to say things/write things out loud and on paper that you will see I was and am a work in progress.  Your story has been the greatest driving force to help me face my fears, find help when I couldn’t do it on my own and more than anything grow my faith.

Thanks for letting me interview you on your 10^th birthday!

Here we go:

1. Describe yourself?

• A smart kind friend, I have CF, I like reading, I love my friends, I like helping people who need help

2. What are you thankful for this year?

• My best friend always being there for me (when I was in the hospital, taking care of me at school)

3. What do you want to be when you grow up?

• Author and illustrator (want to write about my stuffed animals, my friends and my life with CF)

4. What is really important to you?

• Friends and family

5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?

• Phoenix, Arizona. Go see my aunt Jana, Uncle Ronnie, and my cousins and go swimming in their pool

6. Who do you admire and why?

• Heidi Bauer, I want to be friendly and kind like her…and crazy and not shy

7. What are you afraid of?

• Clowns, (not Lbow because he is kind and funny) because of the way they look and act

• Friendships when I get older, don’t know what it will be like with them when we grow up

8. What is one of your favorite memories?

• Ice skating at Ward Lake with my family right before I got sent to Seattle Children’s to live for a while and going to the movies to see Frozen 2

9. What is something you want to learn?

• How to sow sea otter fur into clothing like aunt Suzy

10. What are you looking forward to this coming year?

• Changing into a big girl and learning how to do stuff the right way and not act like how I did this last year. For a White Christmas hopefully

11. Bonus: (anything you want to say)

• I want to be better at taking my pills (enzymes)

 

Ezrah May Harney, you are 10 years old today.  There was a day 9 years and many months ago that I was unsure you would even get to this birthday.  The things the doctors said early in your life ripped all the hope of reaching even the simplest of milestones.  I am so thankful that you have reached this day.  I can’t wait to celebrate you with friends and family.  You have been my greatest opportunity to constantly reframe my thinking and try to find the sliver of good in all the hard.

Keep defying the odds baby girl, keep holding onto big dreams, keep letting others in as you learn how to trust them even if they can’t or don’t understand all the things that you are going through.

Happy birthday 10 yr old, here’s to a new decade of memories to make!

Love you