Their Diabetes.

We’ve arrived in new territory.

I started this blog just over five years ago.  Five years ago my oldest was 14 years old.  J was 11.  B was 7.  L was 5.

Today, our lives are not what they were five years ago.  Not even close.

As I look down the dusty road behind us, I see an enormous amount of progress.  We’ve covered a lot of ground…five years ago isn’t even visible in the rear view mirror anymore. It’s more of a memory than a point of reference.

Things were harder for me then.  Diabetes-wise anyway.

Going from doing everything, all the time…to where I am now, blows my mind.

Case and point: This morning I woke up before the boys and checked their blood sugars as they lay asleep in their beds.  I grabbed one of the boy’s pumps to correct and couldn’t remember the last time I had it in my hands.  It had to be at least a few days before. 

Can you grasp the enormity of that?

Five years ago my hands were on those pumps upwards of ten times a day, each.  Easily.  Now, even though it’s like riding a bike, it felt a bit awkward to give him insulin.

It didn’t feel like my pump.  It felt like his pump.

As I sit here and collect my thoughts, and try to collect my emotions too, I realize that it doesn’t feel like my diabetes anymore either.

It feels like theirs.

Sure, I'm aware it was always theirs.  But for a season, I held the stewardship in my hands.  I stripped their burden bare and wore it on my chest.  Piece by piece they've taken that burden back from me.  They are heavy with responsibility now.

All the boys are doing their own set changes.  J has been doing the midnight checks for the past month.  The two youngest confirm carb counts with me, but when I’m at school, they count/SWAG on their own…and they’re doing a pretty amazing job at it.  The scale has tipped.  They are doing more of the work than me.

In fact, they are doing most of it.

It gives me pause to think where this blog will go in the next five years.  It’s been easy to blog about my diabetes…but now that it is theirs, things get a bit more complicated.

I can blog about my mistakes.  I can’t blog about theirs.  That isn’t my story to tell.

I can blog about my feelings about diabetes.  I can’t blog about theirs.  That isn’t my story to tell.

I can blog about my journey, but now that my boys are taking the lead…its time for them to climb their own mountains and tell their own tales.

No, I’m not going to stop blogging.  I have too much to say.

But my authority on teens and tweens with diabetes will be flimsy at best, as authority infers the power to make choices and enforce obedience.  My boys are old enough to make their own choices now, and we all know how easy it is to force teens into obedience…

I won’t go as far as to say I’ll be a spectator…but I’m a supporting player now. 

My job will be to encourage. 

To lift up. 

To rally. 

To enhearten. 

To praise. 

To buoy. 

To console. 

To applaud. 

And to fortify what’s been taught.

The road is bending and the scenery has become uncharted territory, but my boys fearlessly blaze their trails anyway.

Honestly, I’ve never been so proud of them as I am in this moment.