Annie’s first birthday was a few weeks ago. We had the sweetest day. We rented a house at the beach with the grandparents and showed her the ocean for the first time. She loved it. She ate cake and ran at the waves and laughed when they knocked her down. We relaxed and the world felt a little more spacious. It was needed, and wonderful.

Nine days later we quietly marked the one-year anniversary of her first open heart surgery. I took her to the park and we played on the swings. I hugged her and held her a little more than usual, remembering the day a year ago when she was so enveloped in tubes and wires that I could barely find a patch of skin to touch, much less hold. I cried, way more than I thought I would, and told myself that it was okay to be kind of a wreck. I imagine that five, ten years from now I’ll probably still cry when I think about her tiny body and my mama’s heart and what they both went through that day.

I also gave blood that afternoon. I did it because someone somewhere will need it, and because I wanted to honor Annie’s fight, and because it felt right. Annie needed transfusions during both surgeries, and donated blood was critical. In the midst of all the incredible emotional support we received, those bags of B-positive that mingled with her bloodstream were tangible, visible evidence of a total stranger’s thoughtfulness (side note: I love that my daughter’s blood type is B positive).

Others’ thoughtfulness- and needing it- has been on my mind a lot since her 12-month checkup when the nurse asked me to describe Annie’s personality. “Clingy?” she asked, typing notes in her computer and reciting a list on the screen. “Happy? Independent? Fussy?” I paused for a second, then answered, “Independent. Happy, and really, really energetic.” And I thought, all afternoon and for days afterward, about having an independent child. This child who needed other people’s very blood to live, whose heart has been cradled in the hands of surgeons, who received nourishment through a feeding tube and oxygen through a ventilator. And how curious it is that “independent” was the first trait that came to mind. I mean, it’s true. A few days ago she wanted to leave me at the playground and go home with a sweet older couple whose dog she hit it off with. She glanced back and waddled away faster when she saw that I was coming over to pick her up. I love it, in so many ways, and I firmly believe her wide streak of self-determination is a big part of what got her through two major open heart surgeries and what will get her through the next one. But how much independence do I want to nurture? Yes, I want her to learn how to do things – many things- on her own, in her own time. I want her to feel the freedom to waddle away at the park, to discover and create and be on her own, directed by her own inquisitive little spirit and without a hovercraft of a mom fluttering overhead. And yet I also want her to know that it’s okay to need others. That needing help is human, and asking for it opens doors and hearts in the most beautiful ways. I want her to feel at ease with leaning on another for support, with knowing that she doesn’t have to do it all herself. I want inTERdependence to hold its own with independence, and for the two to complement each other in her life, in our lives. Unfortunately, I can be kind of awful at all of this.  I want to teach this all-important concept to my kid, but it has eluded me so many times. This happens a lot. Nothing has made me realize my deficits – and wonder how I can teach something I haven’t fully grasped- more than parenting.

I have a box that contains all the cards we received when we first found out about Annie’s heart well over a year ago. I’ve held on to stones and candles and symbolic gifts that people have given us- reminders that we’re being cared for and prayed for and thought of. Notes written to Annie before she was born. A prayer bundle and an owl feather and a strand of beads. All of them sit close to my heart and remind me how dependent on so many we have been. I think the first step I’ll take in teaching interdependence to Annie is to show her these things, early and often, one at a time, imparting the importance of each one on her little heart.  I’ll tell her that she was a total warrior during her surgeries but that she had hard days too, days when she needed extra support and extra meds and the doctors had extra concerns, and that none of this makes her any less of an amazing person. And maybe each year when her surgery anniversary rolls around I’ll give blood and as she gets older I’ll explain to her that someone somewhere will need it, just like we all need someone sometimes, and that this connection is what keeps us truly alive.