We all have moments that make us who we are. Moments that your entire world feels like it is spinning out of control. When your emotional and mental side are running at speeds of 100 mph and your feet are standing totaly and completly still....
When my Father died I remember feeling like the entire world kept living, going on with their daily lives like nothing happened, while my world, the one that I knew no longer existed, was falling apart. I hated everyone and everything and I couldn’t even say why. People said they were sorry and I would wish their fathers dead, wish them to feel my pain so I could be the one with only words to ease their sorrow. This anger and pain did dissipate but slowly, very slowly and when I came out on the other side I was a different person.
When my fiancé dumped me on a phone call during my lunch break at work I felt the earth fall out from under my feet. I had no words only tears and it was the 2nd time in my life I thought I was better off dead.. Dead was easier than alive in a world that made no sense to me. I felt alone and I felt like I was in a foreign place, a place that felt..... Empty. When this time in my life ended and my sisters and Mother helped me pick up the million little pieces of my broken heart and paste them back together. I had clarity. I was happy.... for the first time in years... I was me.
When my sister decided to become an oncology nurse I knew it was partly because of her pain. She felt like I did, and although my sisters and I barley ever talked about the void my father left we all silently carried the hurt on our shoulders. She was going to help ease that pain for others. But how would she separate? How would she be able to walk away everyday and experience the loss that I have been unable to let go even after all this time.... and do it over and over and over.
My little sister talks about her patients like they are regular people; it is rare she will even mention the disease in fact. She has created this world that every day she is letting people into. I wonder if she is able to eliminate the anger in the disease? The anger I still to this day can recall. I know Teri feels something when one of her patients loses the battle. I imagine she cries. I wonder if the earth falls out from under her and her worlds stand still every time.....
Choosing a career is not easy.... In fact I tried several out for size. I had the field narrowed down to 2 by my senior year of college, Social Work and Early Childhood Education. The education classes and field time came easy to me. It was like babysitting bigger groups and throwing in some concepts and learning standards. The social work, although very passionate was more difficult. The school part was easy, social policies and child welfare. It was the field time I struggled with. I took a placement with a contracting private adoption center. What this meant was that I did pre and post placements for children getting ready to be adopted and home studies with families looking to foster or adopt a child. This job was 30% rewarding and 70% heartbreak. The private adoptions were easy. If a family was traveling internationally I would prep them for what to expect and assess the home. Post placement was a great time. A brown colored baby would lay swaddled in her bassinet and proud parents would gloat about the sleepless nights and hard adjustments to parenthood. I would leave there and although only 22 years old I knew these parents were blessed and they knew it. Most every family I dealt with had been struggling with infertility and felt the extra blessings when they looked at their new child..... They took nothing for granted, it was humbling.
It was the assessments I did with children in DSS custody that would break me. One girl separated from her biological sister because she was "screwed up". She struggled with lead poisoning because she would get so hungry and Mom would be nowhere to be found. She would scrape away at the windowsills of their 3rd floor apartment and eat the lead wood chips. She could recall days that turned into nights and her mom was out as she dealt with her crying baby sister, she recalled being dirty and hungry. These were the experiences that left me breathless, the moments that I wondered where God was, moments that hit the center of my heart and that left me breathless. I use to lie in bed at night thinking about these children that never had a chance. The ones who would have their stories and history follow them like a black cloud always running but never able to really escape their truth. Why? I would think. It was not until I hosted an adoption party later that year that I realized that people, normal happy couples wanted the kids to. It was rarer that a family was going to take on what a 13 year old orphan called himself "damaged goods" but it was real. Nervous parents lined the walls of the gymnasium and that day several children found a family. I share all of this with you because it is now I realize that that nervous mother might be my sister.
She has experienced the worst kind of loss, the loss of a child. She is lucky, although you would never hear her say that (and I do not blame her) that she lost her child before she had a chance to know him. Before his hand twisted around her index finger or she heard him mutter the word "mama". She lost him before he got behind the wheel of his first car and graduated from high school. This is a tragedy for the little child that will never walk the earth but a blessing that my sister did not have to endure the loss of a child with a name and face. She is experiencing loss and I left to try to understand that her world is standing still and we are all moving about our daily lives. It is at this time that our silent sister language means the most but also a time that no hugs or tears will take the pain away. It is a moment that time is the only gift that will heal and you cannot speed time up for the sake of not feeling pain. This is her pain to endure..... Strong and true. I have begun to wonder if losing this baby will make her stronger or make her angry or both. I wonder if losing that baby is the plan as a baby is born to a Mother that does not deserve her only to find Sandy as her Mother as her journey in life begins. Time will tell but in the meantime my sister will be running and standing still all at the same time....
All moments of breathlessness are not bad or tragic....I recently had a baby. He is beautiful, perfect in fact. His smile lights up the room, his fingers are bulging with baby fat and his eyes are full of hopes, dreams and curiosity. It is blessings like him that make all the bad stuff seem not so bad. I stood at the altar as both my sisters married their best friends. I saw the smile in their eyes when they looked at their new husbands and I knew they were truly happy. I scoop my niece up into my arms as she begs me for some "num-in-nums" (M&M's) with her persuasive little smile that I know my family has endured the bad to enjoy the best things in life. As I sit around a table where my family is all healthy and together and I hear the sound of laughter I know we need to get through the tough stuff, the stuff that makes you hurt from head to toe to get to the good stuff, to love the good stuff, to appreciate the good stuff. So for every moment that you are left so broken hearted, the moments that you think the pain will never heal and you will be running from your pain the entire life, just stand still. Stand still and let life heal you, let love heal you; let family love you.... those blessings will get you through.
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