Brackett Bits

So last night I stayed up til 11 reading the blog of a lady whom I have never met (she is the sister of a friend of a friend). Just over a month ago, she lost her 14 month old daughter who drown in their hot tub. She writes on her blog every single day. I cried the entire time I read it, woke up at 2:00 in the morning crying, and woke up this morning with huge puffy eyes and a migraine headache. I was crying for her loss, but more than that I was crying because her words have made a profound change in me. Her faith and perserverence are beyond levels that most of us can even begin to understand. But what I realized as I read, was that her Blog actually answered soome of my prayers.

Its a long story, but I have had somewhat of a rocky relationship with my younger daughter Reagan. I seem to loose my patience more easily with her, am quicker to punish her, and often the severity of the punishment does not match the action she was being punished for. This has been going on for quite sometime and has worsened as she has approached her teenage years. My relationship with my own mother was never the best and it still makes me sad to this day that it was never resolved prior to her death - and I still can't understand why she made me feel the way she did. I do not want the same thing for my daughter. Anyways, as far as Reagan goes, she is very different from Haley, and has her own way of doing things. I love that they are so different, but I have never felt that she bonded with me as well as Haley did. I have prayed alot lately for Heavenly Father to help me be a better parent to her and figure out how to create a closeness with her that I felt I was lacking.

So last night as I was reading this amazing blog, I was reminded that I came very closing to loosing Reagan in the exact same way. At the age of 17 months, Reagan got out the front door which was left open by some of Haleys friends who had come over to play. I was at work and David was in the bathroom. When he came into the living room and saw the front door open and no Reagan, he immediately ran outside to look for her. Our condo was surrounded by water features that were not in any way childproof. He ran around the building the way that we usually walked when we left the house, thinking she would naturally go that way. No Reagan. He circled back around, calling her name. No Reagan. Finally he crossed the bridge that ran over the water way to the condo building across the way from us. As he did this, he heard a man calling for help. He ran towards the voice and saw a stranger with our daughter soaking wet and completley ashen. His first reaction was that she was gone. As he took her from this man's arms, she looked at him and started to cry. Complete relief washed over him and he was able to listen to the man's story - which in itself was amazing. This man, a complete stranger to us, was out walking his dog when he saw what he thought was a doll floating in the pond. As he got closer he could see that it was a baby, with just her little nose and mouth above water. He ran and fished her out of the water. The amazing part is, he said he never walked his dog at that time of day. On that particular day, his pregnant wife had a miscarraige in the morning, and he had spent the day in the hospital with her and and missed walking the dog. When they finally got home, she took a nap and he was able to finally walk the dog. And by a miracle, he was right where we needed him to be to save our child. The water where she had fallen in was about 3 feet deep and dark green. In just a few more seconds she would have sunk out of sight and it would have been too late.

Our Hero came over later that afternoon after we had a chance to warm her up and make sure she was ok, and asked if he could take a picture with "the little angel" that he saved that day. To this day, I do not know his name. I feel like I did not thank him enough or do enough for him, but I was in shock. Needless to say we moved away from there within the month. The month after the accident, my mind kept going to the "what if", and it almost drove me crazy. But time heals mosts wounds, and my anxeity over the incident faded over the years.

Now, after reading the blog last night, I made a profound realization. My relationship with my daughter (or lack thereof) is my fault. I almost lost her and by the grace of my Heavenly Father was spared the agony of losing a child - but instead of living every day like it was a gift, I let myself be annoyed, or quick to anger, with anything she did that bothered me in the least bit. I had no patience and I am sure this caused her to not want to develop a close relationship with me. It's my fault, not hers, and I have to be the one to fix it. I realized that this poor woman would give anything to have her daughter back, and I was wasting the time I had with mine being annoyed.

So today is a new day and I am determined to make this work. I took her to the salon today and got her haircut (she has been begging me for weeks), I came up with a solution to a disagreement that we had been having for months (a solution that worked for both of us), and I have not lost my temper once today. Now I realize I can not fix this relationship in just one day, but one day is a good start.

If you want to partake of the faith of one amazing woman, you can read her blog here.