I’ve been trying all week to craft a post about my sister and Tanner, about how they’re struggling right now, about how they keep taking blows, about how they keep taking blows but never stop moving forward, never stop pursuing happiness, never stop pursuing life. I wanted to craft a post about how my sister recently made the most difficult decision that a parent could ever possibly make, the decision to allow Tanner’s life to be shortened, probably significantly, so that it might be a better life. But the words just don’t come, because I just don’t know how she did it, how she found that courage to do what is absolutely certainly the right thing, but also absolutely certainly the hardest thing. And so I don’t know how to talk about it, write about it, make sense of it. Not without crying so hard that the tears blur my vision and make my head ache. Not yet, anyway.

Today is one of those days when I just love my children so much that my breath catches in my throat and my stomach hurts and tears prick at the corner of my eyes and I just feel all, you know, clenchy and overwhelmed by the feeling, the conviction, that this, this is what people mean when they talk about miracles and wonder.

Because they fly, they really do fly, and they take my heart with them when they soar.