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October 31, 2008

Remembering October…

Written by Michelle

October 2002. I stood in the NICU of a specialty childrens' hospital, watching the ventilator-driven rise and fall of our daughter's tiny chest. So many things had gone wrong since we had first learned I was pregnant. I was exhausted and so was my husband, Ken.

He made the three-hour drive between the hospital and work as often as we could afford and he worried all the time he was gone. I stayed with Jacqui and watched. Watched as the swelling that shut off her airway had grown worse. Watched as she was wheeled away alone, a tiny bundle in a vast steel crib for test after test after test. Watched as they excavated her tiny hands, feet and temples for veins to run yet another. Watched as her eyes of newborn blue followed me around the room, pleading, clutching desperately at my heart like one who is drowning. I could do nothing but watch and pray. And so I prayed.

I remember there were moments that I believed with all my heart that I wouldn't survive. Moments that I felt were impossible, unbearable. I remember feeling wound so emotionally tight that it felt as if my entire frame was vibrating. Even my tormented thoughts seemed to have an audible buzzing quality. With each new setback I would vibrate at a more frantic and erratic frequency. I wondered when the news would come that would cause me to snap me like the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

But it never came. Instead came grace. Grace in tiny doses. Like hand-holds each time the cliff face steepened — just enough grace to survive that moment and find my way to the next. Moments like October 31, 2002 when Ken returned to the NICU, handing me our camera with an image of a sunset. As I looked at the tiny image on the screen, Ken held me close and whispered…

"I was on my way back here tonight, and crying so hard that I had to pull the car over. I stopped the car and prayed that somehow we would all get though this. When I pulled over, the clouds were so dark and thick that I had already turned on the car's headlights. I was facing west and even though my eyes were closed, it was suddenly brighter. When I opened my eyes this picture is what I saw. We're going to get through this. You and I. And Jacqui. We will. One moment at a time."

And Ken was right. We did. We are. Some moments are still devastatingly dark. But we somehow hold on until the next one. Sometimes the next moment is even darker than the one we just left. But sometimes…

Sometimes the moments are beautiful. Like October 31, 2007. A moment when a beautiful little lady bug and her baby brother dinosaur romped through a leaf-strewn park. They filled the air with their laughter, mending a few of those broken pieces hidden away in my heart.

There will be more moments. Some dark, some bright as that flash of gold in Ken's sunset. Each of them, dark or brilliant, playing a role in making us what we are — a family.