the life I never had

Today is the unofficial end of winter vacation. This year it started a week early due to inclimate weather and someone in the family being sick. Come Monday morning we are going to be some slow moving, grumpy people.
My daughter had a cluster of seizures today that really wiped her out. She lay down most of the morning, only waking up for 3-4 minutes at a time to have a seizure and then fall back asleep. After having 4 seizures, (that I saw) and sleeping for about 2 hours she arouse from her slumber.
These days she is out of her wheelchair, off of the ketogenic diet, no more stomach tube, and down to 1 anti-seizure med, (from 4). Her favorite things to do are swinging in the backyard, playing in her room , and chewing on anything and everything. I do a lot less nursing these days and try to find ways to connect with her and be her mom.
I remember once when she was in the hospital having some kind of procedure done. I was in the waiting area. There was a nurse talking to me about what to watch for after the procedure was done. She saw that I was upset and stopped being a nurse and became a fellow mom. She told me that she had a son with Cerbral Paulsey who was also mentally retarded. She explained to me, while choking back the tears, that she learned how to celebrate different things in his life. She stopped looking forward to his college graduation, his wedding, and the birth of his child; she had let all of that go. She now looked forward to cellebrating his daily successes.
She made me think of all that I needed to let go of. The ideas I had formed in my head before my daughter was even born. The times we would spend together on mother-daughter outings, the nights I would hold her and promise that her heart would be ok after a break up. Then of course the big ones like graduation, wedding day and the birth of her children. I had already filled my head with the ideas of what my life with my daughter and my son would be.
I still haven't completly let go of this life. I have to though, to be fair to my husband, daughter and my boy. It's not fair to mourne a life that I never really had. This is the way that it was supposed to be. Denying that would be a diservice to my children. And like my husband says, "She is the one who has suffered".
I never asked or thought that what happened wasn't fair nor did I ever say , "why her"? I feel like asking these questions is like saying that it would be ok for someone else to go through this; like saying it's ok for this to happen to a child that is impovrished or from a different race or having parents that aren't like us. This is life, perfectly imperfect.