finding strength

you have power over your mind.realize this and you can find strength. - marcus aurelius

some days are easy.  some...not so easy.  regardless, i keep going day to day.  trying to be patient. trying to keep smiling.  trying to keep it all together.   but then...then i hear, 

is daddy going to die in iraq?

and while i choke back the tears, i say,

of course not.  daddy is on a safe base in iraq.  daddy's not going to die.  he's fine.

what else am i supposed to say?  well, i know he was safe last night when we talked to him.  what today has brought his way...i do not know.  and i'm not sure when i'm going to know.  could be a few days. maybe a week.  maybe more.  there's no way for us to call him. we have to just wait and hope that we're home when he does call.

this is life.  my life.  right now.  with a deployed husband.  

when i'm feeling down or unmotivated, i try and remind myself of all i have to be grateful for. i remind myself how so many others have it tougher--way tougher--than we do.  just thinking about some of the families i've recently photographed offers me a huge reality check...and a tremendous amount of strength and courage. there's a military spouse, who's going to deliver her baby in two months without her husband; he's deployed and will return when their baby is four months old.  there's a 36 year old mother of three fighting for her life, with adrenal cancer metastasized to the lungs.  there's a family, who recently lost their seven-year-old son to neuroblastoma.  there's a family, who just got the news that their eight-year-old son has six new neuroblastoma lesions on his legs and head.

so i give myself a little nudge, get my thoughts straight and remember...

i can handle this.   i can handle this.

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i leave you with a few photos from this past weekend...the pregnant military spouse mentioned above, who is absolutely glowing with beauty, grace and strength.