Shannon McLeod
September 29,
2010
Twenty-three
Twenty-three days old. A mother sits with her new-born child. She rocks her in a chair. She is beginning to get the hang of this life
that she has welcomed into hers. This life
that will grow to be twenty-four and twenty-five days old and on and on for
years to come. This life that she grew
within herself and has known already for nine months. Nine months…..and twenty-three days.
Twenty-three days old. The only measure
of life, of age, that can be used for my child, my children actually. My third
and fourth children, both daughters. Death
at the age of twenty-three days. How
strange. Why twenty-three days? Twenty-three days, two separate times, two
separate years. Way too young. No twenty-four, no twenty-five days old and
on and on for years to come. Nothing and
no one to get the hang of. No life to
learn.
Twenty-three days of life once
was…..sweet. A surprise from her
powerful life that was to have none. Each
breath she took, each day she woke, was such a gift. How lucky we were to be able to spend that
time with an infant deemed “incompatible with life”.
Twenty-three days twice was…….a cruel
joke. And where the first time we moved
through this space alert and with grace that could only come from nothing human
but once was, the second time felt like we were being punched in the face, in
the gut, over and over. Where has the
grace gone? Where is my focus? “Incompatible with life”, again.
My focus was on her, on her life but
it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. There was too little left and we knew even
less of what to expect with her, less of what to expect from her life that
would prove to be too short for any life, again. Maybe we should have known. Maybe we should have assumed the worst
instead of hoping for the best. Maybe we
were foolish to believe that an infant born with more brain tissue than none
would mean there would be some life.
Some. More. Life.
Certainly more than just twenty-three days of life. Again.
The human body, the human mind will
try to protect itself subconsciously from such trauma. The trauma of losing a child. But by my mind and body doing this, I am now
left with regrets. I so wish I could
have been to Eadie, our fourth, what I was able to be for Josie, our third. But, it was just too painful. Twice?
Yet, it was all there was.
Twenty-three days. Too late.
We hoped for Josie’s life too. We believed she could live, that they could
be wrong. That a brain would just….appear? We believed Our Savior would heal her because
He could have. He didn’t.
To hope again was crazy, right? How could a parent help it? To believe the best for your child, full of
life, or not. To cling to hope is the
only way to survive it. Foolish. Child like faith. The only proper response.
I’m not exactly sure what it all looked
like, this second twenty-three days.
There was no way to fight it.
This human protection mode made this space in time, in my life, like a
fog. Rolling in, rolling out. Was it there?
I heard it (her). Was it
there? I felt it (her). It was gone
before I could grasp it. Too late.
So, now I live with regret. Two hundred and seventy-nine days, and
counting, of regret. Hope has become my
enemy. I can only hope it won’t always
be.
No comments:
Post a Comment