look through a window

     Ever hear the phrase "on the outside looking in"?  It is meant to convey a sense of longing for something that you don't have.  It is also used visually in movies, paintings, songs.  Usually some poor waif is looking longingly at a holiday meal with a family gathered around a table.  You are meant to feel pity and compassion for the individual. In the movies, that scene usually comes full circle when that waif is brought to the "inside".  It is a "happy ending".
     In my head, there is a window and I am on the outside.  It used to be much bigger but I am slowly bricking it over.  Right now, there are curtains over it.  But sometimes, a wind will blow the curtain aside and I look.  I look into what life "should be".
    In it, Jarrad and I walk Emma into her first day of kindergarten.  Sam throws a fit and Jarrad carries him out.  I kiss Jarrad good bye as he gets into his car and drives to work.  And I don't worry about his job.  Or money.  We just had a trip - he and I - to Boston.  He went to a conference and I stayed in the hotel by the pool and read till he came back.  We walked all over Boston.  My history man told me all sorts of tidbits and we talked about how we are going to torture our children by making them come here.  This weekend, we would do house things; maybe go to the Farmer's Market and get apples so I could make apple sauce next week.  No, wait, we would go to a birthday party of one of Emma's friends and Jarrad would play laser tag like one of the kids.  Church and on Monday, we would cook out.
     I fell asleep trying so hard not to look out the window in my head at what life "should be".  And when I woke up, I had forgotten what life is.  I heard his voice and was relaxed and then I remembered and was not.
     I sit here, with tears streaming down my face.  I am so tired of crying.  I am so tired of seeing him struggle.  Now, his one knee is funky.  He was getting dressed and bent his knee and it sounded like someone snapping a finger.  Now, it is just weird.  It has a whole lot of range of motion; more so than the other leg.  We are both scared.  We told the nurse and PT but they didn't seem to be too concerned. 
     I know that being a Christian is no guarantee of an easy life but I am really struggling here.  I know that God's ways aren't ours.  I know that His plan is perfect.  Maybe one of my children or grandchildren will find a cure for SCI.  But that is little comfort in the here in now.  What I really want is for someone to come outside and bring me and my whole family in from the cold.
     I am not sure how much more I can take.