Peel back the layers

Do you know what I think is beautiful?
The sound of my daughter sighing in her sleep.
The feel of cool soft grass beneath my bare feet on a hot summer day.
The wild excited look in Emma's eyes when she is trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve.
The smell of my house when I make spaghetti because it reminds me of when I was a kid visiting my grandparents house for dinner.
The feel of my cats soft fur beneath my hands at the end of a long day...the vibrations from her purring travelling up through my hand and calming my tired mind.
The fact that there could be a million places to sit in a room...and yet every single time my kid will choose to sit right beside me...close enough so her leg is touching mine...and she's leaning against my arm.
The silence that surrounds you in the mountains.
The look in my husbands eyes when he is watching Emma do something that makes him proud.
The dimples on both of their cheeks when I see them smile the same smile.
The smell of coffee brewing in the morning as I stand there waiting with my cup in hand and one eye still shut trying to hold onto the sleep I was just in.
The way the sky looks as I walk out of the hospital doors...after our three month clinic appointment. It's a bright sky...a free sky...a clean and open sky to go along with the clean slate feeling I get knowing we get to try again starting that day...fresh...new...try again for next clinic appointment in three months time.
The feel of a vial of insulin in my hands. It's clear...definitely not odourless...but clear...and beautiful...comforting. That little glass vial full of something that is more valuable than anything in the world to me. It allows me to still have my daughter alive...and breathing...and living...and loving.
The feeling I get when a friend from years ago....a lifetime ago...posts something randomly on my Facebook page about diabetes...because they saw it...and even though diabetes does not affect their lives personally...they saw it...and read it...and wanted to share it with me because they know that we live this life.

Diabetes is not beautiful.

It's an ugly disease. Not always ugly on the outside for the world to see...but ugly nonetheless. It steals from us...time...blood...sleep. It takes what it wants...when it wants...without a second thought.
I believe there are layers to this life with diabetes though. Over time the layers build and build and sort of protect you from the magnitude of the situation...but I think it's important to sometimes peel back those layers....peel back the ugliness and the worry and the fear and the pain and the grief over the life that was once yours. Peel back the layers and find the beauty in this life despite it all. It's there. I know it's hard to see sometimes when you are surrounded by all those layers of ugliness...but I promise you the beauty is there.

Let yourself peel the layers back and find it once in a while. It's nice.