The Flu: Updated.

We’ve been sick before as a family of three, and the baby has had the flu before, but we’ve never been sick with the flu alongside the baby, and I have to say it really makes a difference. There is no better way to ‘die to self’ than to nurse a sick child when you yourself are very sick. There is something surreal about it, as though you aren’t really doing these things, just thinking them. Somehow, despite being unable to lift your head from the pillow enough to take a drink, you have enough strength to gather up the baby and croak a lullaby to him. The very thought of food makes you ill, but you stagger into the kitchen anyway to find something for your child to eat. It may take you three times as long to do it, but he is bathed, and diapered, dosed with Tylenol and rocked every evening. You nurse him, and feel terrible, but you still nurse him. Is this a small sampling of divine love? Is this flu a carefully disguised gift, a way for Our Father to show us how he can love through us? Because this strength I find in weakness is not mine; it must be Him loving the baby through me.