My sisters

If you had told me five years ago that  I would love someone that I only knew through the computer, and had never met in person, I would have thought you were just plain silly.
If you had told me five years ago that I would have formed such an incredible bond with other people...women...D-Moms....that my heart literally pounds in my chest when I read about their children having low blood sugars, I would have shrugged it off and not believed it possible.
If you had told me five years ago, that I would do anything....ANYTHING....to help them when they need me, I would have never honestly considered it.

Now I know.

Now I know what it feels like to have a sister. Now I know what it feels like to truly care so much about someone that you would do anything for them to make their struggles easier to handle. I get it. I understand the life they are living. I have felt the feelings they are feeling. I have been through the struggles they have been through. I have felt that icy cold panic that runs through your entire body when your child with diabetes becomes ill with a stomach virus. I have felt the frustration as the meter screams a nasty number at me and the ketones just won't seem to go away no matter how hard I try. I have felt that pure and real exhaustion. I'm not talking about that losing a few hours sleep because my kid has a bad cough or a fever kind of exhaustion...I'm talking about that special kind of exhaustion...the kind where you have been awake all night...the kind where you feel like your limbs are limp noodles attached to your body and your heart is beating so heavy that you can feel your pulse behind your eyes...right where a headache of tremendous intensity has settled. The kind of exhaustion where the mere act of taking a deep breath feels like just...too...much...effort. I know what it feels like to sob uncontrollably in the shower as the hot water beats down upon your weary shoulders. I know what it's like to be scared...truly scared. I know what it feels like to have that inner argument with yourself on whether or not you need to take your child in to the emergency room. I know what it's like to accept defeat...accept that I need help..accept that this disease is sometimes bigger than me. I know what it feels like to look into your sick child's eyes and tell them that we have to get in the car...it's time to go...Mommy needs help...I know you don't like the hospital...I know you don't want to go...I know you hate the IV needle...I know you're scared....but it's time....we have to go.

I get it. I lean on you for support and you can lean on me. We may have never met in person....but I still love you...I still love your child.

It's because of the bond. To try and describe this D-Mom bond and how strong it is to someone who doesn't live this life is next to impossible. It's unbreakable and never ending. It's unconditional and never without love. It's pride and joy and sadness and sorrow. It's very real and very tangible. It has saved my sanity and saved my life and my daughters life more times than I can count.

That bond will carry us through to the end...it will carry us through the depths of despair and the peaks of our triumphs. That bond is love. That bond is strength. That bond is OURS.