Today....

Where to even start?  These days are never good for me.  The days when the memories are crystal clear.  I cried on and off all day and am getting particularly good about hiding it.  On these days, I try my hardest to focus on what I need to be thankful for.  I’m thankful that I met Jonah.  It should have never happened. Dr. Michi shook his head and told me point blank – he didn’t know how Jonah was here.  No matter how short our days were together, many parents never get a day.  They never see their child wiggle, open their eyes, pucker their lips, and smile.  They never touch their pink skin or feel the warmth of their breath.  I’m thankful for the amazing miracle I witnessed.  Many times in my life, I have jokingly said, “it’s a miracle!” Or we’ve praised God for a miracle that we witnessed from a distance via friends and family.  I touched a miracle.  I held a miracle.  I’m thankful for God’s healing.  I know that’s shocking for a grieving mother to say.  God healed Jonah.  He didn’t heal him the way I had asked, night after night, in my prayers.  But He healed Jonah. On our last night, I asked for God’s will to be done in Jonah’s life and I begged him for a healing, regardless of the manner (it was the most unselfish moment in my life.)  I never even fell asleep after prayers before I was told to come hold him.  Jonah’s heart is completely whole now.  And for that, I am thankful.  I’m thankful for all the people Jonah brought into my life and for the friendship’s he solidified.  Forever and always, I will be grateful for the many people that were there for us, at all hours. 

I was reading a story, about a child asking his father, after the death of a young relative, why good people die too soon in their life.  The father made a sweet point. He said “son, if you were looking at a field of flowers, you’d only pick the prettiest ones.”

God bless you all and thank you for the support these past 5 years.

Goodbye.....but not really.....

It’s been almost five year and grief will still paralyze me.  I become trapped in it and I have to wait for it to pass.  Car rides were always the worst.  Alone. Music. Thoughts. And of course, tears.  It happened twice this week.  I find it unbearable to loose people in my life. Even for a temporary goodbye. Even if it’s just for four weeks. I didn’t want to leave my classmates.  And it’s not for four weeks, it’s longer than that.  We’ll be in clinicals all summer, away from each other. In August, we’ll be completely separated.  I’m sensitive to goodbyes. I despise them, even under the best of circumstances.

I cried at lunch with a few of my classmates.  We started talking about the Heart Walk, innocently enough.  I was laughing about Dr. Dyamenahalli on the tricycle, Dr. Eble’s dancing skills (or lack, thereof.)  Then I went into the last conversation I had with Dr. Dyamenahalli.  I hadn’t seen him in several years and he wasn’t one of my favorite doctors, by any stretch of the imagination.  You either like him or you don’t – there is no in between.   I’ve always been honest about my feelings toward him. But he was there with us.  Therefore, he mattered.  Try as he may, he always seemed a little less human to me.  He was emotionless and methodical.  One evening, after realizing I hadn’t seen my sweet baby awake since we’d left Ft. Smith,  he turned off all the lights, closed the curtains and attempted to wake Jonah up.  It worked.  And he earned a few extra popularity points in my book.  We would disagree from day to day but not as much as a certain other doctor.  I would pick my battles with him.  He was the doctor that had sat us down to tell us the end was near.  I was angry at the time.  I was resentful toward him.  I was letdown by the entire situation on so many different levels.

At the Heart Walk, he became human to me.  He was kind, sincere and quirky.  He was also gone.  He was leaving for Chicago.  Our first conversation in years was essentially our last.  He brought me to tears back in 2009, and our conversations can still bring me to tears today.  I’m glad he was at the Heart Walk.  Aside from Dr. Eble, he was the other constant in our Children’s stay. For the chance at this goodbye, I am thankful.

(However, I’d still take a big HELLO over any goodbye!)

While I should be studying.....

I wrote this blog back in December when this all played out.  At the time, I couldn’t post it….for many reasons, the pain and fear in our family was too fresh and the need to protect her privacy as she dealt with everything.  Now, I had to read it to remind myself again….it will all be okay.

            Every semester, at the beginning, I stress.  Is this worth it? Is the sacrifice (for my family) worth the education (for me)? I weigh my options. I lose sleep.  Will my kids be okay without me around as often? Is the financial burden I place on Jason worth all this? I stress on an enormous scale.  Panic, almost.  It’s a profound time for me.  I’m not really sure why? It’s inevitable.  I’m not quitting.  Everyone around me knows this but I have to let the stress and panic play out.  I still ponder every option.  God always brings me back to the center. The very center.  He would have not taken me on this journey to watch me back track or find an escape route.  No.  This weekend was no different.  School is approaching.  The next 8 months, I will be traveling a lot which will put an additional strain on my family, my kids, my marriage and my bank account.

Of course, I needed one more thing to add to my stress level.  My car started making a strange racket.  I need this car.   I didn’t have time for a car to be out of commission.  I sure didn’t have the financial resources to completely replace my transmission.  Of course, that’s what I imagined in my crazy stressed out head.  A small clatter turned into my transmission completely dropping out of my car…in my imagination.  Not the good kind of imagination that SpongeBob sings about while forming a rainbow over his head.   The bad kind of imagination that Murphy’s Law talks about: if anything can go wrong, it will.  It can. It should. At the most inopportune time.  And it will be all your fault. And everyone will know it.

It was stupid on our part to not plan for a transmission completely crashing but we didn’t.  My stress level was exaggerated beyond even my imagination.  I had to get books, a drug screen, and a background check for my next clinical site.  And to top it all off, I had abandoned the treadmill.    Who could exercise at a time like that?  My mountain of stress was building.  But on Sunday morning, in the midst of my self-created chaos, my phone rang.  It was my brother.  My brother rarely calls me.  Texts, Facebook – yes, but a phone call?  Rarely.  He started the conversation with a quiver in his voice, “I don’t have good news, Wendy.” Just great, I remember thinking.  But no, he was right.  He didn’t have good news.  He might as well have called me at 2 in the morning.  It felt like that kind of call.

And in that instant, I remember thinking, “you are an idiot, Wendy.” I hung up the phone and cried for my brother and his family.  Years ago, when we lost Jonah, I remember understanding what it means to be grateful for everything.  Everything. It can be ripped from you so quickly.   I remember not sweating the trivial things.  There were real tribulations out there – I was going through the largest of those when I held my child as he took his last breath and as we had to see him lying in his casket. My prayers were simple then – God, you get me through this, and I’ll be able to get through anything. Four and a half years later, I still have to vocally remind myself of that.  I still forget.

I can’t remember the exact quote or who said it but I have to remind myself – the things you take for granted someone else is praying for. And one of my personal favorites is an Indian proverb, “I cried because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet.”  Yes, many people would love my simple stress.  It took one phone call for me to remember to give it all to God.  He carries our burdens for us.  I sought out 1 Peter 5:7. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

I had to look at my instruction manual to ease my crazy mind.

 

P.S. It never was the transmission.  It had something to do with a “belt.” Cost us a miniscule amount to fix.