I sit here tonight with questions constantly turning in my head. I've always placed my trust and hope in my God, and even in times when I should have broken from the suffering and injustice that has been done to our little family. It recently became time for the kids to go on their 3rd annual trip to Pennsylvania this year with their grandparents, I didn't hesitate to send them because I knew that they have suffered along side of me, in fear, over the last bit of our life. When I received picture updates and face time phone calls with them, I could see that they were indeed being carried, a gift they needed so deeply; since I was diagnosed with cancer on October 25th, 2016, they have had to pick themselves up in ways that most children don't experience at such young and tender ages. A large part of the suffering I have endured has been because of this very detail--no child deserves to be forced to grow up before they are indeed "grown up." As a mother, I have always second guessed what I demand of my children because I have a deep understanding of what it could do to a child when you pull away their innocence. So then why? Why would I be asked, as a mother, to watch them endure one of the most challenging lessons they could possibly face in their youth?
My greatest hope comes in the fact that I didn't ask them to endure any of this. God did, and continues to ask it of them.
Over ten years ago I sat in a dark quiet house and wept over the loss of my son. Certainly, I thought, this would be a sacrifice worthy of being with him again--to gracefully accept that Heavenly Father knows better than I do, and has asked for His and my child back once again. My heart wondered what it would do to his brothers at the time. Connor was only 3 years old, but Shane was everything to him. The nights following Shane's death, Connor would get a baby doll we once used as the Christmas child, and he wold wrap him in a blanket, call him Baby Shane, and hand the baby over to me so that somehow Mommy's tears would cease to fall. Connor and Aiden were so resilient. I am still overwhelmed with gratitude for having had the ability to watch two beautiful brother's give their sweet baby brother over to the Lord without much in the way of questioning as well.
A decade has passed since that day. Yet, in all we have been challenged with as a family, it has felt more like a century. Coming into this diagnosis, my body and mind was already running weak from fighting unanswered questions to my health decline and living in an environment of constant change with our family. In spite of all we attempted to do with our lives to bring in steadiness, we always felt we were thrown a curve ball and had been one step behind--blindsided by people we trusted when we engaged in employment and rental contracts. The lack of follow through with the parties we worked with caused a great measure of frustration in our minds which can so easily lead to self doubt and criticism. For as long as I can recall, I tried ever so hard to avoid engaging in any thought that would claim that we did this to ourselves. I simply pushed on. When the people we worked with on housing contracts broke their end of the lease, we had to pick ourselves up after attempting to advocate for ourselves and just move on. As parents we always told the kids that there has to be a bigger reason for it all and that we would make the best of the new place we would be living in.
Unfortunately, similar experiences plagued us in the work force. Only a year ago, I was employed to care for a severely disabled young woman in her home by a nursing hospice and home health agency. I was pregnant with our 6th child this time last year when I was working for the agency. I was a good nurse and did more than just physically care for this woman--I gave her a piece of my heart. We became very good friends. Out of nowhere, on a hot summer day in August of last year, as I sat with my twin sister and mother in my childhood home, I received a voice mail from my employer. I couldn't help but place the phone down in utter shock after listening to the message. The agency claimed that I could not come into work that night because they found another nurse to work my regularly scheduled shift because i was "pregnant" and they weren't certain if I would be coming back after the baby was born anyhow. My first thought was, "this sounds a lot like discrimination." I put my head in my hands and wept. My sister and mom tried to comfort me in stating that perhaps it was a misunderstanding; by all means, it sounds like it should have been because that is a heavy thing to do in the times we live in. However, after clarification, it was clear that it wasn't a mistake--I was fired from my job because I was pregnant even though it was clear that I was still capable of caring for this young woman in excellence.
I guess it takes a series of events to tear someone like me apart, because through all of the seemingly unjust things that have come our way, I still chose to smile and push on.
I knew something more was coming last August. I had prepared myself through this last and dreadful pregnancy for something to drop like a bomb onto our lap. This preparation came in large part because of a series of dreams I had in the early stages of the pregnancy. In one of the dreams, I was about to deliver my baby, but something was going wrong. I recall laying on a hospital bed, feeling like I was walking a very thin line between life and death. An oxygen mask was placed on me and I was told not to move from the position I was in. The doctor informed me that the baby had to come now. I laid there wondering how I would find the strength to deliver a baby; I felt completely worn thin and weak. While laying there, I could feel myself drift between this mortal life that we all know and have expectations of, and the life that lies ahead of us, a life that human beings are always questioning. It was as though my spirit was brought to simply observe what was happening on the other side of the veil--the resting place for all those who have died. I saw two beautiful women in a room, working on a white dress. They spoke to each other about me. One woman said, "Is it her time?" and the woman who had been placed in charge of preparing my dress answered with, "Not yet....but soon".
I couldn't disregard this dream, but I also couldn't deny myself the rest that I needed to continue in giving life to this child that was within me. Therefore, I used all my might to carry this little innocent child through the hardest pregnancy I have ever experienced. I was on many medications including thyroid replacements for an ever failing metabolism (which we now know was fueling a cancer's growth and probably getting very tired from fighting what to fuel for years now--cancer and/or the body.) The fluid balance in my body had been off for about 4 years now, leading me to be completely dependent on diuretics to mobilize the fluid I would take in. My body wanted to place the fluid in tissues and organs that it didn't belong in instead of allowing it to run through my body for nourishment and hydration, and then out as a waste product in the end. The hives I had been dealing with since 2011 continued through the pregnancy, as did the respiratory infections that had taken a turn for the worse in the last 2.5 years. I found myself being treated for recurring respiratory infections through the summer months, even when no one in my house was sick except for me. Obviously there was a bigger culprit than the current unknown to my failing health.
Sadly, my failing health led to the weakening and discouragement of my spirit. By the time I went into "labor" with our sweet 6th child, I was so tired of fighting for myself that I had pretty much given up on fighting all together. It is a peculiar thing to be so strong and capable for years, through tragedy and broken hearts, and then to finally see yourself falling apart; it doesn't look like falling apart, it simply looks like acceptance of the unknown. I still placed a smile on my face, but instead of telling the doctors that something feels wrong, I went with their scripted responses. At one time, I was on fire, demanding lab tests and diagnostic studies be done, but now, I just went with the flow, almost to my demise. My husband found the lump in my right breast when I was 6 months pregnant. We both looked at each other on the night he found it and innately knew, without saying a word, that something was terribly wrong, even bigger than we had expected prior. Silently, we continued living. I failed to mention the lump to my doctor, and when I did, I was already 36 weeks along in the pregnancy, and get this--the lump had grown by my personal assessment.
Now, after almost 9 months of treatment for my stage 3 breast cancer, I am a woman who doesn't recognize herself in physical or emotional form. For the sake of life and love, I place a smile on my face, though there have been hundreds of days when all I could do was cry. I have never known a sadness so deep. It is a sadness that comes from understanding that in this journey, I have a 100% knowledge that my children have to suffer and know pain far beyond their years. I know grief too well, and I would do anything to shield them from the heartaches I have known, but now here they are, being forced to come face to face with a frightening grief. At the age of diagnosis, my children were 13, 11, 7, 6, and 1 day old. For the most part, I can say they have coped the best amongst all of us. But now, after 9 months of this intense and deep suffering, I am seeing the depth of their pain. Their whole worlds have been turned upside down, and the daily wanderings of their minds tells me to what depth they understand life already.
When I am with my girls, there is a conversation thread that picks up on a daily basis regarding me, the cancer, and if I will be around when they start dating, get married, and have children. They want to know that I will be here, but none of us have been promised that. The boys have released their grief in different ways--even a simple shift in how they seem to be handling day to day changes cues me into how they are doing. However, in the last week, I have witnessed both of the boys emotionally breaking a wall as they share with me all of the worries that run through their beautiful minds. Tonight, I held my son as we both wept. As tears rolled off his face, I tucked him into my arms and rested his head upon my shoulder and let him cry all of his worries onto me. I kissed him and thanked him for being so open with me, then I assured him of my desire to work on all of his concerns.
After placing the kids in bed, I came into the living room and cried tears of sadness over having to watch such tender children suffer, with very little that I can do to resolve it. My greatest desire, for me, is to be intimately involved in my children's lives, minds, decisions, and hearts--I pray they can feel and trust that whether I am here or walking beside them beyond the veil. My greatest desire for my children is to find respite in Their Savior, Jesus Christ, because it will be through Him that they will see clearly and with an understanding of life that motivates actions of love and faith, even in tragedy and pain.
I don't fully understand why the Lord continues to challenge us. My hope is to find those answers as we patiently experience life, and to continue in childlike love so that joy and love has no limitation in blessings for us who have suffered so intensely.
For now, I hope these children will think back upon the good times they have, even amidst some of the darkest hours that our family must endure. For now, the greatest amount of suffering is upon my shoulders....I hope it doesn't compound on theirs one day....
Clean baby....
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