Grateful

I’ve been thinking lately about my son and how his life is a miracle. I know that with conviction as I watched him in the hospital, watched him struggle for life, dying. Listened to the words the doctors and nurses didn’t say and what they did say when he survived. It’s clear as day all the pain and fear, the praying and pleading with the Lord to spare him.

I started wondering today,

• How do you separate the horrific emotions and memories from the miracle?
• How do you look back on something that changed everything and only see the good?
• Will I ever leave this place where I can still feel the pain and fear, but maybe more importantly, should I?

I started thinking about all this when my older son made a comment about Declan existing and it brought me back to the days when I wasn’t sure he would. I told him we should be thankful that God gave us Declan. And later I told Declan how I couldn’t imagine our lives without him in it. Throughout my depression I haven’t shown how thankful I am for Declan’s miracle. Whether I’m thinking about it or not, it’s there in the back of my mind and always when I sing him to sleep. But to feel that intense feeling of gratefulness; that I don’t feel as often.

My depression made me feel at odds with God. Like He was punishing me for not having greater faith or something. Here I was so happy that God performed a miracle and saved our son, but I fell into this deep depression that sucked so much of the life out of me that I was barely a shell of my former self. I didn’t get to enjoy all the precious moments of Declan’s early life because I was consumed, gone, missing. There are actual holes in my memory from that time. I look at pictures of Declan and don’t even remember when he looked like that. And so while part of me has been so thankful that God spared his life, the other part of me has been so angry that he didn’t heal me to enjoy my gift. I know that this is a process for me at least, and will take time. But this is my first step towards moving forward and coming to a truce with God.

I am profoundly grateful and truly blessed for the miracle God performed in sparing my son and the joy of having him in our lives every day.

Everything else, I’m still trying to figure out. And guess for now, that’s ok.