AAP Voices

Balancing life as a mom of three daughters and as a medical director of an inpatient pediatric unit is, under the best of circumstances, challenging. Under the current circumstances, it has sometimes felt nearly impossible. 

Often, I've headed off to the hospital before any of my girls were even awake. But today as I was pouring the coffee, I heard my youngest, Anastasia, cooing from her crib, and when I went in to greet her, she lit up the pre-dawn dim in her room with sheer excitement to see me. 

My older girls were not awake yet, and my husband was already logged in and teleworking. So for this magical window of the morning, we started our day together, just the two of us. It was brief, but it was perfect.

So I carried the feelings of this morning with me all day today — through the "straightforward" decisions and the sneaky second guesses; the small celebrations and the difficult conversations; the teaching and the teleconferencing; and the time spent catching up with the treasured folks I work with. 

I even flashed the attached photo (of a selfie with Anastasia) a few times, because it made my heart so happy. 

As we trudge through these long and lonely days as best we can, so much of it runs together. In what feels like our zillionth week of quarantine, I have more than once asked myself: What day is it; or, frankly, what month is it? But there have been bright moments to punctuate the muddled, foggy dimness, too.

Some are big: the birthday parades down our neighborhood streets; the first responders rallying around our hospital; the babies that are born; the patients who are discharged; and the human kindness that has shined on and from so many of us. 

Others are so small that you'll miss them if you aren't looking: a splintering, multiplying, miraculous rainbow over Glen Cove, N.Y.; that first breath of fresh air when you take your mask off outside the hospital; or a sunrise selfie with my baby while the coffee is hot and the house is quiet. 

I carried those moments with me all day today. I'll carry them all with me until this is over.

May we each seek the moments to punctuate the darkness, even when they are small and hard to see. When the world feels so broken, it helps to remember that there are cracks that let the light shine through.

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