maybe not even to me.
We went to see Hazel Grace again like we do every day, and I sat next to her and Jimmy and I looked at her and we talked to her nurse and we spoke with her doctor...
and I realized:
This is my life; this is my normal...
this is my storm.
And I must daily choose what I am going to do in my life...
in my storm.
Hazel's pressures continue to come down, but ever so slowly, and she is already starting to be weaned off her antibiotics,
and it appears that she will not be able to be ex-tubated and taken off the breathing machine anytime soon.
And so she's not coming home any time soon and she's not coming out of her little fish tank any time soon and I can't even hold her for at least another 3 weeks, and by then she will be more than 2 months old and I haven't even held her yet and I see other mothers with their babies and they hold and rock and nurse them and I can't...
and I can't!
And the storm swirls and the wind howls and I howl right along with it because this is my storm and it's just not fair and I don't like it and why in the world did this happen anyway and what can I do about it but just sit and watch and my hands are tied and I don't want it to be this way
And I still have to pump and be tied to that machine that sits glaring at me all day from the corner of the living room and I still have to get up in the morning and wash dry fold and cook serve clean
and oh how I howl into the wind that whips around me
and my hair is long and it sticks to my face in the heat and the tears and I want to tear at it and tame it and make it behave because I can't control anything else and then I realize, as I look in the mirror at the frizzy mess that circles my head, that I can't even control that
and I am completely out of control and lost and angry and...and...and...
sad.
And I would curl up in a corner and just sit there but the dust bunnies have beat me to it.
So instead I reach over and pick up the t-shirt that Gabriel shed on the floor while putting on his pajamas and I rest my head on the crumpled cotton knowing that if it's going to get into the hamper, it's going to be me who's going to do it
and then I hear something through the raging winds of my storm...
and I finally stop my rant and cool my rage and tame my thoughts so that I can hear it clearly
and it's a Psalm that is tickling my mind and bringing to me a song:
Psalm 121
1.I lift my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from?
2.My help comes from the Lord the Maker of heaven and earth.
3.He will not let your foot slip - He who watches over you will not slumber
4.Indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep
5.The Lord watches over you - the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6.The sun will not harm you by day nor he moon by night
7.The Lord will keep you from all harm - He will watch over your life
8.The Lord will watch over both your coming and going both now and forevermore.
And I realize that every day I must choose anew to lift my eyes to the hills because that is where my help does come from and as the song says,
though my heart is torn, I will praise you through this storm.
It is a choice. One that must be made every day.
Every hour.
Sometimes even every minute.
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