HELD

Lyan Marshal and Christian at the Hockey marathon

Dear Christian

I sit at the computer today amidst stillness and silence in the house. It is weird to find myself alone on this long weekend Monday while you, the kids and your daddy have gone off to see a bee farm. Pretty funny actually when you dad told me that you had been invited to a beef farm – imagine his surprise! Anyways I am super sick and your daddy thought he would give me some reprieve and let me stay home alone and get some rest. I don’t know how much resting I did but it was nice to spend some time alone with my brain. You are doing so amazing, each day your dad and I exchange grateful, happy smiles as we know each others thoughts about your progress. Each day you seem to get bigger, stronger, more confident and hairier! I watched you sleep last night (while I was up blowing my nose, coughing and rubbing my aching head) and couldn’t help but think about what you had been through. You are so calm when you sleep and I worry less and less each night that you are going to wake up sick to your stomach, screaming about bone pain or terrified by nightmares. But part of me is terrified that I will forget this past year.

As I walked today I listened to a song by Natalie Grant called “Held”. Her words spoke deep to my heart today as they did the day of your huge resection surgery.

“This is what it means to be held, how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what is it to be loved and to know that the promise was when everything fell, we’d be held”.

Two days after surgery - being HELD

 I do not want to forget how it felt to be so completely out of control. I want to remember how it felt the night when you had to have an emergency surgery to decompress your bowel, I completely gave everything over to God and said, “This is your deal – we completely trust You and Your plan for our lives”. But the problem is that when things are going well we forget to continue to give our lives over to God and ask for help and guidance. I still remember looking into the face Dr. Mahoney – your PICU doctor that day – and she told me how scared she was for you. Her eyes were very serious and it seemed as though she was readying us for a battle of epic proportions. And I remember thinking this isn’t how things are supposed to go. This isn’t really us in the hospital and this isn’t really me in the PICU praying my son doesn’t die. This is something we watch in the movies or on TV. This thought was brought on by a movie I watched today that had a scene with a young boy obviously struggling with cancer. I looked at the picture and thought I can’t believe I have been there. I can’t believe my son got cancer. I can’t believe we made it – we were held.

Enjoying play time with Evelyn and her "Tayto"

Everything we hold dear and sacred as parents can be ‘torn from our life’ in one second. Whether it is losing a child tragically, shortly after birth or from cancer – these are things that are not supposed to happen to kids. But they do – they happened to you. And I feel God saying to me, “I am here – always”. And as Pastor Doug reminded us on the weekend, “The Lord has promised good to me” so we must hold on to his words and promises for a good things. You need to continue to remember your struggle and how we were held during your darkest days. The days we didn’t know if you were going to live through the day or night. The days after chemotherapy when you would be feeling so sick and throwing up. The times you were so scared to get sick because you didn’t want to lose your NG tube. “My tube, my tube!” you would scream to me. So much fear and anxiety. So much sadness and fatigue. The days while we waited for you to engraft after your stem cell transplant and the days we waited for you to return after your intense bout with withdrawal.

But once again we were held. The things that were supposed to be sacred were taken away, your innocence as a small child running up a soccer field changed to a warrior battling a horrible disease. But the lesson I want to make sure I remember as your mommy is that we won. We were held – so I don’t want to be afraid to ask the question, “what if?” Don’t ever let that question stop you from doing something. Don’t every be afraid to ask and then answer that question. Because even the scary answers God is apart of. What if I look silly in class? What if I don’t make the team? What if nobody likes me? These are not sacred things but God is not just responsible for getting us through the horrendous times in our lives – He is there always. And He always is the answer to “What if?” God will get you through whatever is going on and He is always brining us good things. So Christian when life gets really tough make sure to ask God what his plans are for you, what does He want you to learn from the things going on in your life. Because he allowed you to get cancer so that your life and your families life could be awesome, amazing, life changing and forever awe-inspiring to the people who know you and know how hard you fought. You changed people and you change your mom and dad.  

As a mommy I am ashamed to say that I have lived a lot of my emotional life behind a pane of glass. Afraid to smash through and put myself out there for fear of getting hurt. In fear of the question, ”What if?” When your little brother died shortly after birth I didn’t deal with it properly and now I pay the price with my feeble efforts at emotional attachments. God taught me how to let go, and now each day I feel my heart swell and grow as I look at you and Evelyn and Ryan. Now I know the answer to “what if” and although it might take time to work through the answer the end result is always a gift. Because death is not the end of life but the beginning of something great, and Jackie is waiting for all of us – to run to us at heaven’s gate and give us a big hug.

Can't get enough of those beautiful eyes

So once again, as I have done 100 times before in this blog, I just want to say thank you for being you. For being such an amazing, strong little boy, for being resilient, for being sincere and full of heart. Thank you for helping mommy and daddy be better. Thank you for taking on such a huge task so that our family could be whole and complete. You are in the palm of God’s hand and you are safe. I love you.

Love Mommy

Today I am thankful for:

1.Evelyn telling me the other night that we were best friends, “Right?”

2.Hot baths in the afternoon when you are not feeling well

3. Songs that speak to you heart right when you need it