Patience to Endure

Tag: life

  • Unpack

    Unpack

    It is a beautiful day today, sweet boy. The kind of day you would sit on the swing and with furious determination scroll through your Ipad.

    I managed to catch up on watering plants and even repotted a couple. Still, most of the day was spent on the couch unpacking the medical trauma from two weeks ago and, of course and always, missing you.

    We got to the hospital on February 17th around 11:00 am. As we waited for them to call us back you were feeling well enough to be ticked off. They drew some bloodwork, got you a room, and started IV medication and fluids. After a few hours you were moved to a different part of the emergency room where the stable patients went until a bed opened. You were supposed to go to the general medicine floor. Even the medical professionals could not see and lab work hid how sick you really were.

    Around 11:30 pm it all began happening so fast that I didn’t know what was happening even as it was happening.

    He is in A-fib. We are moving him to the part of the ED where the ICU trained staff is.

    As soon as she finished her sentence a team descended and whisked you out of the room. We have been in the hospitals enough to know rushing teams is not good.

    You were taken into the resuscitation room with an unsettling brisk pace. At least twenty people went in the room. It was the same room they took Grandpa into by ambulance 2 years before… My heart sank.

    What is happening?

    Let me get you a chair.

    What is happening with my son?

    When they do not answer your question you know you do not want to hear the answer.

    I peaked in your room

    Your blood pressure was 60/40. You were pale. You were dying. I begged you to stay.

    Please come sit down.

    Afib….Low blood pressure. Cardioversion. Shock. Could die…

    Where is Mom?

    I see her standing in the hallway lost. She looked so small and so scared, not the feisty woman I know.

    Can you get my mom a chair?

    We are conferring. He may need cardioversion to shock his heart. In rare cases it can cause cardiac arrest.

    I fall to my knees. Head bowed. Hands clasped.

    Please God, one more time, let me keep my son.

    My mom calls her best friend on the phone. It is midnight. Her friend comes immediately.

    I call Steve. He is crashing. Please come.

    A nurse kneels next to us.

    I don’t know much because he just got here but I will answer what I can.

    Finally someone is speaking to us.

    I look in the room again. His blood pressure is 50/30

    We are pushing a lot of fluid.

    A social worker appears. Do you need a chaplain?

    The only time they call a chaplain is when someone is dying. I decline.

    The fluids seemed to be helping. Cardioversion postponed. They take you to the ICU.

    Over the next few days I would see only small glimpses of you. You were on a lot of medication. I began missing you already.

    The next big trauma would begin on February 21st and would be your last.

    No more shocks to the heart, sweet boy. No more infections or failing valves. No more cascading dominoes. Not for you, anyway. Mommy is trying so hard every day to keep one domino up. I just need one to stay stable. It often teeters but I will not relent. You taught me well. I will make you proud.

    the wish

    to be with you there

    sits on one side of me.

    the desire to make you proud here

    sits on the other.

    and between them

    I’ll sway

    until i have both.

    sara rian, find me there

  • Church

    Church

    Steve and I went to church today with the “baby.” When I brought Nathan home from the hospital thirteen years ago I taught you the sign for “baby”. It didn’t occur to me then that someday you would still be calling the six-foot one teen age brother “baby”. You loved it when he came with us on our outings, especially Target. He loved playing with you and giving you hugs. He hurts deeply now that you are gone.

    I have been reading about “care giver crash” lately. It isn’t a medical diagnosis but is a psychological and physical collapse that occurs when prolonged caregiving suddenly stops. I guess my body was in chronic survival mode. It helped me to stay alert, sleep lightly, and wake quickly so I could care for you. The adrenaline, hyper-alertness, cortisol, and purpose I had for twenty-four years are cruelly and abruptly no more. Apparently it is my nervous system’s way of finally saying “It’s safe to stop now” and years of exhaustion surface all at once. I detest it.

    Then the collapse… exhaustion, bodily heaviness, trouble concentrating, waves of grief, headaches, muscle aches, sleep disruption, feelings of disorientation. Unbeknownst to me, my nervous system was carrying a huge load for a very long time. It didn’t feel like it because it was all in the care of you and it was my honor.

    Add grief over losing you and gravity is much more than 9.8 meters per second squared. Even the weight of my body in the world is different. Steps are heavier. Sitting up feels like exercise. Everything is a challenge.

    When your big brother Emerson was little I remember watching an anime with him where the hero went to another planet to train. The gravity was much heavier so when he went back to his original planet he was stronger, faster and could jump higher. The extra gravity worked to his advantage. Perhaps that will be my case. I hold on to hope still yet.

    But I went to church today. Gravity made it hard to stand. The music started. I lifted my chin and sang the words. As if enveloped in thick mud it took all my strength but I did it, sweet boy. I raised my hands in worship. Worship isn’t an emotion. It is not a feeling. It is a necessity and I felt better for it knowing God is worthy and realizing you are on the other side of eternity singing praise. For a moment, once again but altogether different, together we sang.

    We were going to go out to eat with Grandma and Aunt Dolly later but I just couldn’t. We never did that before because the few times I did go to church I always had to go straight home to catheterize you. Today wasn’t the day to start that tradition. It just didn’t feel right yet. It may never feel right but, I hope, it will eventually feel less wrong.

    On the way home Aunt Dolly started coughing. I still said out loud “Aunt Dolly coughing. Better do something!” even though you weren’t in the car to laugh. Do you remember how I started that game because you would get scared sometimes when you started coughing? Whenever you were scared we would make a game of it and suddenly the fear was replaced with laughter. The unintended consequence was every time you heard someone cough you would laugh.

    I came home and collapsed to the couch. The doorbell rang and it was a friend who has traveled this road. She gave me a book and told me it helped her on her journey. There is something profoundly beautiful when someone who has walked through hell comes back, holds out her hand, and shows you the way.

    find me there.

    where sunsets glow

    but it never gets dark.

    where pain doesn’t exist

    and comfort is always felt.

    where everything you’ve ever loved

    finds its way back to you in the end.

    the place you went to when

    your heart fell asleep.

    my time will come

    to see you again

    and you can

    find me

    there.

    sara rian

    I am so lost without you, my sweet boy. It is an agonizing pain worse than anything imaginable. I find solace that you don’t feel this pain and you are where it is never dark and all you know is comfort. And someday, my child, you can find me there.

  • Home Depot

    Home Depot

    Two weeks ago this day your heart beat for the last time. It feels like two decades at times and two minutes at others. Time is cruel.

    I went to Home Depot today. You hated Home Depot. It was your least favorite store but we also had fun there, especially during Christmas. We would push all the buttons and watch Disney characters sing songs just for you. You would give me enough time to look at plants and then would let me, and the entire store, know it was time to leave.

    I pushed a cart today. It was abhorrent. When you were here I always pulled it because I would maneuver you in your chair in front of me. When I finished looking at the plants, there by myself I said, “Now we have to go find Grandma,” and my heart broke all over again. You were not there to hear me.

    I managed to check out and get back to the car in time to cry. You hated it when I cried. You always would cry with me even if you didn’t know what it was about. You laughed when I laughed and you cried when I cried. You never cared why only that we shared every emotion. You were the best companion.

    There were children everywhere at Home Depot today proudly displaying their craft. I cried more wondering why I didn’t get to keep you, my child. Then I remembered. I did. For twenty-four years I got to keep you closer than most mothers get the privilege of experiencing. And for that I am grateful.

    I don’t know how I am going to do this, my sweet boy. You were the voice in my head and the song in my heart. You were my purpose and every day I thanked God for giving me a child who would ensure my role as mother would always be profound because you needed me and that would never change. At least not until February 21, 2026. Your brothers will always need me as a mother but not like you did.

    I count it progress I was able to get back to the car before I cried this time. Baby steps. A friend once told me

    One step at a time. And when you can’t, just lean forward.

    I am leaning forward. Sometimes I just sit and cry. This grief is different. It has shaken my very knowledge of where I am in the world. It is physical. It is emotional. It is mental. It is overwhelmingly, seemingly impossible. But God…

    All the time I miss your beautiful love. Your smile. Your request for hugs which I honored every single time because I knew each one could be the last.

    That last one came two weeks ago today. Steve held your hand and I hugged you whispering “Mommy is here…mommy is here,” over and over until you were not.

    Someday I will be able to go to a store and not cry. Some day the clock will not remind me it is time to catheterize or give medication or have coffee together in my office. Someday I will make it through a day without crying. But there will never be a day I don’t miss you with my whole, shattered, broken heart. I hold to the promise it won’t always be so shattered or broken but do know there will always be a piece missing until I see you again, sweet boy.

    A friend sent me this poem. Your absence, the quietness of the house, the emptiness of my days tell my truth of this poem:

    Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful Grace of God (Aeschylus, translated by Edieth Hamilton in 1930)