Zen

noun

a Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism that aims at enlightenment by direct intuition through meditation

(Source: "Zen." Merriam-Webster website.)

Today marks the conclusion of my month-long reflection on the experience of having a premature baby. I realize that this post is actually a day late, and I am going to blame that on the intense meditation it takes to draw the final conclusions you will read here. (My students often use a similar excuse. When I ask where an assignment is, a few are brave enough to say, "It's in my head.")

Over the last month, I have learned a few things both from my reflections and the process of putting them into words. On the latter, I have realized how difficult it is to keep up with a daily writing goal. My schedule and children leave me with very little free time, especially during the school week, and on the weekends, I found it difficult to motivate myself to complete the task. Many of my posts were written at the end of the day and felt very much like an afterthought. Yet, this task was of great importance to me because the subject matter is very close to my heart. Thus, even if my musings seemed more like ramblings, I feel the sense of accomplishment one gets from setting a goal and seeing it through to the end.

In putting my thoughts into words, I have learned quite a bit about the journey my family has made. I have also learned a few things about myself. First, I now know that I have much more strength than I realize, and so does my family. Having a preemie requires each member of a family to stretch themselves to the limit and then some. Though at times it may have felt like we were going to break, all of us made it through with no lasting damage.

Another lesson I have learned is to let go of fear. There is certainly quite a bit of that involved in having a sick baby, and some of it stays with a person long after all is well. There is the fear that something will go wrong, and in the case of a premature baby, it often does. Such fear is not a vague fear of the unknown either because a parent of a preemie knows exactly what can go wrong. Yet, living in fear only means that one misses out on what goes right. Buzzy has been slow in weight gain and language development. I can live in fear that she will always be small and slower than her peers, or I can celebrate the fact that she now weighs enough to sit in a forward-facing car seat and has enough cognitive awareness to clearly respond with an "I don't know" when asked a question. Will her prematurity cause any lifelong problems for her? It is possible, but seeing the ways in which she has exceeded expectations is enough to give this pessimist hope.

I leave you with the following hopeful words:

We do not learn by experience, but by our capacity for experience
- Buddha

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
- Helen Keller