Smackintheface

Luca came in the house the other day with bloody knees.

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It was nothing I hadn't seen before in my 6 years as a momma.

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But still something was off.

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Different.

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There was a calmness about her that just didn't seem right for a child with blood dripping from her knees.

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There was an acceptance of the pain.

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Here's the gory evidence.

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And here's my sweet Luca bird as I tended to her wounds

(notice the smile...what is up with that?!?).

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Trust me...I asked myself the same question you're probably asking yourself. "How could she stop and take a picture when her child has been wounded?!?" But on this day, Luca once again was teaching her dear old clueless mother something about life, and I didn't want to forget her priceless lesson.

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Actually, it felt quite unnatural to reach for the camera with bloody knees before me, and there was a brief moment when I thought to myself, "Have I ever taken a picture of Brenin's skinned knees?"

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But then I remembered that when Brenin skins her knees, the place is literally like an ER after a 5 car pile up...gauze pads flying through the air, people running for water, ice, anything. You're forced to shout at your nursing staff (hehe) over her loud and exaggerated cries for help.
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And then the sobering truth hit me like a "smackintheface" (as my friend and fellow adoptive parent-to-be has coined as a term for these types of moments). Luca's pain is different from our pain. The loss she's experienced, the hunger she's felt, the sadness she's known in her lifetime is all so much greater than skinned knees or really anything we can imagine in our privileged world.

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And then I ask myself, "What is painful to me?" "What do I cry about?" "Or whine about?"

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And I'm embarrassed.

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And I realize that pain is relative.

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And I know nothing of it.

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