Garden retreat

Spent an hour in my garden this afternoon, planting, weeding and trying desperately to gather my racing thoughts.
The best part of my day wasn't captured on camera, though, it happened in a lab with a needle stuck in my arm and horribly constricting tourniquet band tied around my bicep. I wasn't looking forward to my lab appointment as I'm not the strongest specimen when it comes to giving blood, but today was different. At the moment when my body usually chooses 'flight' over 'fight', Alex grabbed my hand with one of his soft little hands, rubbed my leg with the other and said "just think about nothing, mom. . . you're doing great". I wish I could say I was gazing into his beautiful brown eyes at this moment, but as hard as I tried to meet his gaze, my 5 year old's eyes were fixed with fascination on the vials of blood being drawn from my body. When the nurse was finished, Alex asked if he could examine my blood. She let him hold and shake the vials and explained to him how the needle enters the veins and so on. For a split second, I honestly wondered, "is this my child?" Then I recalled why I'm sitting here having blood drawn for a surgery that most definitely links him to my body. Next thing I know, the nurse has the tourniquet tied around his arm and they are roll-playing the blood draw. I think he has a promising future in medicine.