A Beautiful Bulge

So today is picture day at school. My kid was all hyped up...picked out a brand new dress for the day...planned ahead exactly how she wanted me to fix her hair...had the perfect pair of earrings to match the whole ensemble. It's funny to me how much of a pre-planner she is. I was never that way. I have always been a go with the flow...fly by the seat of my pants kind of person...that is until diabetes entered our lives. THEN I learned pretty damn quick the importance of pre-planning...and attempting to be prepared for anything. It's not a skill I was born with or a skill that has come easy to me. I still struggle with it to be honest.

Anyway, when Emma got dressed this morning in her new outfit...I couldn't help but notice her pump was visible in the form of a big bulge sticking out from beneath her dress right at her waist area. It was a slap in the face reminder for me that, whether I like it or not...diabetes is always there...ALWAYS. Sure we can pretty it up with a fancy pump pouch...we can put stickers on it...we can have the actual pump in a variety of colours...pink being the one Emma has chosen since day 1.....but still it's diabetes. Strip away all of the layers of dazzling it up....and you're still left with a small machine attached to a tube that sticks into her body and delivers her insulin all day every day.

I sighed as I looked at it...my brain quickly trying to think of a way to fix it...to hide it...to make it less visible and less "odd bulge" looking for her on this picture day. I must have had a strange look on my face because after a minute Emma said to me....what? Is something wrong? Do I have my dress on wrong?

I looked up at her face...her eyes...and I sighed again...this time at her beauty...and how quickly she is growing up right before my eyes...growing up into a beautiful young woman. I smiled and giggle to myself as I thought...I made that....she came from me...I made that beauty. It was in that moment that I realized she could care less about the bulge protruding from her waist beneath her dress. It meant nothing to her. Honestly I don't think she even remembers she's wearing a pump sometimes. I looked at her standing before me and I realized that she is gorgeous....on the outside and on the inside. Diabetes is a part of her. The bulge beneath her dress is a part of her. It's her pancreas. The only difference between her and I is that her pancreas is visible to the world...mine is not.

She is beautiful to me for a lot of reasons....but this morning, I think perhaps the most beautiful thing to me that I saw was that bulge of her pump...and how it was not even on her mind when she thought about her upcoming picture.

I am greatful for the lesson she taught me this morning. It may be an invisible disease...with sometimes very visible tools needed to manage....but it's all beautiful. It's beautiful because of the person surrounding it. Not because of what they have or what they wear...it's not even because of what they endure....she's beautiful because of who she is as a person.