From Michelle. 14 July, 2010 3:30 p.m.
Dear friends and family,
I can now write only in the few stolen moments between children and hospital, paperwork and phone calls. What I thought before was an overwhelming amount of detail has grown exponentially with the arrival of the children. It is not the time that they take that makes it so difficult to balance, it is my desire to love and shelter them through this trial, and my inability at times to do so. I am so deeply torn when I see one cry because I am not coming home from the hospital, or because I am sending them off with someone else. I long to be with them every minute and with Steve every minute and I cannot do both. Steve and I miss each other now as much as we miss the kids. Such is the life tread between hospital and home, trauma and hope.
It was so fun and encouraging to read Mike’s posting yesterday. Steve has indeed come a long way, and to see his face flushed with joy at his new-found independence in the wheelchair was such a sweet sight. At the same time, strangely, a day full of good moments was also a difficult one for me.
As I look back on it, I think part of the difficulty lay in the very joy I witnessed. It brought home for me, I think, the “new normal,” the fact that we are now so grateful for this little bit of independence, this incredibly small step. Where, before, Steve ran and jumped and wrestled with his children and played the guitar without a thought, we are now jumping for joy that he is able to use hands and fingers that no longer work to awkwardly manipulate a wheelchair joy-stick.
There is something sweet in that new gladness and I am so grateful for the gratitude we both feel. At the same time there was a renewed sense of loss for me.
A friend said he was woken up at 2 a.m. thinking of us and with a song in his head…
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness Oh Lord, great is Thy faithfulness!
On the way home from the hospital, I sang those lines over and over again, until I not only believed them but felt them deep down. Zephyr fell sweetly asleep as I sang them over to the both of us.
One of the first things Steve said when a friend asked him about his experience, was that he was learning in a fresh way the meaning and importance of carrying each other’s burdens. He cannot do anything for himself right now, from eating to rolling over in bed, to even relieving himself. He is completely reliant on others. But he did not say this in a self pitying sense. Rather what he expressed was that he is truly being carried by others. We both are. And for that we are grateful, always.
Love,
Michelle