10 years

I woke up this morning and realized that 10 years ago I was waking up about this time in a completely different world. 10 years ago, I woke with fear, dread, horror, and crushing stress.

You see, in a few minutes I was about to stand by my son’s bed and watch him have a seizure – how many had it been by this date? I couldn’t tell you. We were about to hand him over to a surgeon and give him up for a horrifying surgery . My husband was home with a raging fever and pneumonia. I had told him to stay home so that he could come later, when the surgery was over. My parents, recently divorced – who saw each other again for the first time in that hospital room – were sucking it up for our son’s sake. I hadn’t slept in my own bed in months, I was used to the smell of a hospital, I had seen our doctor just stand and stare and sigh and finally speak “Okay… I’ll see in you in the morning…” I had seen parents pushed from the room next door while the staff rushed in to try and save their child. I had heard one doctor say “If we don’t do this surgery, this is going to kill him” and the other tell me, “It’s only a matter of time before he codes on us”. I had watched helplessly as our son came so close to the edge, seen the concern on nurses’ faces, learned how to wake up from a deep sleep to the sound of a seizure, and I had made the awful, yet easy decision one day to stop counting seizures after we hit 300.

But there was hope, just a kernel of hope, that helped me get out of bed that day.

I held him and told him it was okay, that he wouldn’t have to do this anymore. I clung to that hope and maybe it was really more a prayer, a begging of God Almighty to come down and put his hand on my son. And I handed him over, kissed him and let go, all hinged on this kernel of hope, this thread of mercy and grace, clinging to that verse that hung over his bed: “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” –Jeremiah 29:11

What I didn’t know, was that that was the last seizure I would see. What I didn’t know was that my son would laugh and talk and walk again. What I didn’t know was that he would come up to me and put his arms (yes, both arms) around me and hug me so tight that it hurt and then laugh about it. What I didn’t know was that he would get sassy and naughty and funny and bright. What I didn’t know was that he would learn to swim and play the trumpet. What I didn’t know was that God would take normalcy and half his brain away, and give back a miracle.

But on this morning, I had hope. These facts I have just listed weren’t even in my dreams that day. I only wanted him to be alive, in the very basic sense of that word. I had no earthly idea how much he would actually live.

And on this morning ten years later as I wake up and start my day, my mind runs over all my stress, my concerns over my son’s new set of struggles, money, housing, all the little worries that nip at your heels. I realize, like the people in the V-8 commercials, that there is always hope, that God still works miracles, and that He will provide what we need.

"A hope and a future."