The longest nights

The longest nights are when you are waiting. The nights when you know what is going to happen, but you are hoping it won't. The nights you spend being ready, and hoping you won't need to be. Then the time comes and it's over and you are left more than a little lost and confused, not knowing quite what to think. 

I am there now, looking back a little, looking forward a little, but trying to not look anywhere, to just be, just for a little while. I am tired of feeling, and trying not to. There hasn't, honestly, really even been time for either. It is hard here because you see so much of the opposite side of life, death. That is the side that is rarely seen now in the home and life I have been used to. Now I get to see it all from a whole other perspective. I get to be the one saying goodbye, the one standing on the sidelines waving goodbye with absolutely no abillity to stop the flow of the journey. I see the tiny babies who should be being treasured and cooed over, knowing they have the whole world ahead of them, simply waiting to die. The question not being if, but when. Will they hang on struggling making it for a year or two or will they only manage a few days. They ARE beautiful, and every feature and struggle only makes them more so. I see the little ones with inoperable heart conditions that are constantly a slight blue color, children with deformed extremities, children who spend every moment of their lives gasping for air, and I have no doubts that I will never find more abstoundingly beautiful children. I love them, every one, and I can't help it. I don't want to help it. These children deserve love more than anyone I have ever met, and yet being in the situations they were born into they are some of the least likely to get it. At least why they are here I know that however long or difficult their lives are they have found a home and love. They might not be able to have the home or the full medical treatment they could have in a family who could care for them as they should be cared for, but at least they have what we are able to give, and they have love. That is the most essential thing in my eyes and always will be. When I see the smiles or feel their tiny arms around me I know there is no where else I could be meant to be right now. The questions only come when you see that there is nothing more that can be done, and there is only time between them and the inevitable. You can be there, you can check, sometimes fix some things，and you can comfort and relieve distress, but ultimately you can't stop it. I understand it, and am even ok with it in some ways. I know that there will always be death, and it comes at different times for all of us. I can even find some comfort in it when I see them fighting, and are just so exhausted. The pain and fear that accompanies a failing child is one of the hardest to see. When they can't understand what is going on, only enough to be afraid. That is one of the most difficult. Sometimes it is easier for them. They don't struggle, they don't fight, their breathes just get farther and farther aprat until eventually there are no more. And then that is terribly sad too, because your sadness just draws out as you are left waiting. Then it's over,  and you can finally do what ever you need to deal with it, and then you move on to the next time you are needed, and maybe you will get to see one of the instances when a child rallies beyond expecations, or a little one you have loved finally gets to go home to a family of their own where they can be loved and treasured and have everyone one of their special moments celebrated and remembered forever. A place where mother and father are more than just words and they can finally find a place where they can know will always belong and be wanted.