Hello World!

The Birth of the Green Dragon

A few years back, while we were living in Georgia, I went out for a run. These were the years when I was still knee deep in Mommy mode, with a 6 year old daughter, a 4 year old daughter and a 2 year old son. I was still in fellowship training and my husband was a PhD graduate student, and as such, not only were we severely short on cash but we were desperately short on free time. These were the years when I ran/sprinted the 2 mile loop, not to see if I could get a personal best record, but knowing that approximately 17.5 min after I left that front door, all hell would break loose on the home front.

It was an early summer evening and I reveled in the fact that the approaching storm winds had blissfully blown away a few of the ravenous summer mosquitos. But as the lightning started to crash over head, my steps got a bit faster, until survival instinct and sheer adrenaline had me running my first sub 8 min mile since giving birth to my final kid. As the rain started to pour, I crashed through the front door and my eldest came running into my arms saying “I saw you Mama! I saw you flying overhead!”

You see, as I was running through the storm, my responsible and anxious eldest daughter started crying while the thunder boomed through the sky. She thought that Mama was going to be struck by lightning. And as her tears ran, her little sister followed suit, not even knowing why Mama was in danger, but worrying all the same. As my husband saw the development of a full three way meltdown, he decided to whip up a quick story.

“Oh no, sweetie. Mama is perfectly safe,” He said. “Actually, can I tell you a secret? Mama is actually a Green Dragon. And every once in awhile, when she feels the magic building and the need to stretch her wings, she will go outside to turn into her brilliant emerald green form. And that thunder you hear…that’s mom breathing her fire dragon magic through the skies. Don’t worry, when she’s done stretching her wings and blowing off some steam from work, she’ll wander home safe and sound.”

The legend was born. And our eldest, passed it to our middle and on to our youngest child. So over the years, when they were missing me terribly (during a long stretch of night calls at the hospital), they would pray for the lightning storms to come. Knowing that it meant, their Emerald Green Dragon Mama was flying overhead to check up on them and keep them safe.