Monday, August 16, 2010

In the time since Katelynn’s death, many things have changed. I see two children with a depth only grief could have taught them, realizing that as I look at them, it hurts that they miss her so. I realize the amazing power of God to see us, to hold us to know what we need, as His individual children.

Most of us get to a point where we think we know what we are, our place in all of this that we call life. I thought I did. I was a mother, a wife and the list goes, we think we know. I was in a place I liked; in the right balance of blessings and trial. I was learning, moving forward and then Nathan got hit by the bus... it began a process in our family that I couldn’t realize then and will not fully understand in this life.

Certain challenges are easy to label, to define. Such as health problems, errant bus drivers and even death. Being able to define them doesn’t make them easy, you just know what to call it. They have their label; we know where to put them in the story of our lives. Those kinds of challenges have a clarity—we know they are hard-- the sides of what to do seem so clear.

When I meet people there is invariably that question how many kids do you have, after all I live in Utah. I have my answer. Three. I have three kids. I smile but my heart chokes, I smile. They don’t know and it is not something they need to know. Often parents with more discuss their children, how much calmer life is with three than it is with . . . five. I smile, and say something like thoughtful and deep like, “Yeah, that’s … humm so . . . five kids good for you.” I mean it, it is great, I wish I had more. Five is great, I am one of five, really five kids . . . it’s great.

It is funny, really. So many layers to how we all converse with each other. What simple words can mean, how our own experience touches our ability to really connect. I have a hard time meeting new people. Shocking to know me, to hear me talk. I love people, I love everything about meeting people, talking with them and hearing their life. But wow, when I share a segment of our lives, when certain questions are asked I feel like I should offer them a chair when telling of the events of the last few years. You can’t make this stuff up. If you read it in a book the commentary a critic would write is, “the author carried this tragedy thing too far, it isn’t believable.” The old line, life is stranger than fiction, has become a by word of our lives. Sometimes I am asked, “Do you ever wonder what you did wrong?” They look at me honestly asking. The first time I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or be offended. I laughed They were serious, what did I do wrong? Life is not some formula that we can avoid certain scenarios by plugging the right pieces into place. The next time, I had a better answer. Christ had been asked the same question in regards to a man who was blind. Who sinned, the man or his parents? Christ answered neither. It is “that the works of God should be manifest in him.” (John 9: 2-3) Bad things don’t necessarily follow sin, they happen for a purpose we each may not know. Many sacred and personal experiences have come in the time leading up to Katelynn’s birth and many after to comfort us, strengthen us and to teach us.

Despite the death of Katelynn and the severe challenges that we have faced, adversity has not stopped for our family, in some ways it is intensified. Things like Nathan loosing both toenails, becomes a joke, how funny is that! Or my having issues in both elbows that leaves my ring fingers and pinkies kind of numb… hilarious! In perspective they hold humor—at least I can walk! I don’t speak of those challenges I speak of ones I didn’t see coming, those harder to label. I have asked myself, not, why this is so, I believe as a part of my faith that there “is opposition in all things,” it is through the strain that we grow. What has surprised me is where these new challenges have come from. Things that used to hurt me can’t now. I have given up something so dear, I have held two members of my family dead in my arms in one years period. People asking me an honest, potentially offensive question cannot hurt, yet there are places and words that can hurt and they come from those I love. I admit I was shocked that in weeks after my daughters death that such things could be said, surprised me—I cried that such actions could be carried out. At once angry with myself that I would let someone outside of my home hurt me and yet they are close to me and I love them, that the lesson I needed to learn was the power of love. I am still working on that. Yet once those words were there, spoken by those I thought loved us—I questioned my public words. The words I have placed here. This blog was started as a request from my sister. She wanted updates as to Katelynn’s progress. I was new to facebook and had some family and friends on my page, yes I wanted them to be able to get updates on Katelynn, as I would be busy nurturing two children at home and one in the NICU while still being in a wheelchair, using technology to share with those I loved seemed natural. I didn’t mean for it to be read by so many, to have the messages I forwarded to be then forwarded to others. The night that Katelynn had her first heart surgery, I wheeled to my little cubby of a room where parents with a child in the PICU would sleep fitfully out of duty to what our physical bodies demand, guiltily knowing our child just suffered just down the hall. My soul aching, beyond the endurance of suffering I had ever known. I turned on my computer to connect with those I loved outside of this place. Something like fifty messages came both publicly and privately were sent to me on facebook, full of support, love and faith for Katelynn and our family. Nathan and I shared with what became aunts and uncles in our hearts to Katelynn. As we believe all who joined with us in our prayers are joined to our family in a special way.

I normally make others laugh, this has been my gift, to share humor, since then the power to move others, to make them cry has become woven into the gifts God has given me. Katelynn’s story became broader than we could have imagined, the support helping us to know that we all impact each other for good, for bad and in sorrow, none of us grieve in solitude. Our Savior holds us, and when my tears swallowed me your prayers and love added another layer of protection around our family. We are thankful for your love.

The side effects of the public nature of our challenges were not something I was prepared for; it surprised me in so many levels. After Katelynn’s death, before I was able to walk again, I was in Harmon’s grocery store, you know, the one on Redwood road. I needed just a few items, as I maneuvered my electric wheelchair, down the aisle. I have a lot to say about my time being visibly handicapped, but my point now… some people are patronizing to you, others avoid you and some have no patience. And then there are some that go out of their way to help you. I don’t know anyone who loves to go grocery shopping; we all have to do it regardless of the circumstances of our lives. I was using my cane to knock a box of cereal from the shelf and a kind woman offered her help. She was delightfully chatting. I liked her, she reminded me of me… I love talking to people if I know them or not. As she helped me through my list, I was grateful for her goodness, I was hurting so physically that smiling took a piece of will power I didn’t have. I was not really presentable. She asked me what had happened… we both knew she asked about my use of the chair and the worn cane by my side. In a show at a casual answer I assured her it was temporary, why get into all the sticky details that lead to more questions, like pregnancy=baby. No baby, best to avoid the whole issue. I answered that I had hurt my hip. Simple. It was very temporary and gave her my dashing confident smile. She seemed assured in my reply, continuing she spoke on.

We humans like to relate to each other. At a party, when a topic comes up, lets say crazy travel stories, one shares of the time they were stranded in Europe (I would like to be stranded in Europe) I share of when I was stranded in a greyhound bus station with two British men and a grateful dead fan for 2 days - good story. Another shares their travel story. And we all have a connection in our common-ish experience. Laughs are shared. I think by relating in our experiences we find not only the fascinating differences but we also find commonality in the human experience, we feel less alone.

My mom has MS, people always tell her of everyone they have known that has MS. She and I have talked of this many times. It is we humans putting the pieces together. Now I am told of others who have lost a child. I may know of every woman in a five-mile radius of my home who has lost a child. They are everywhere. It is a fascinating aspect of life, we are unaware of something then it happens to us and suddenly we learn of everyone else that it has happened too. Anyone I know who has a baby in the NICU, I am called upon for support, for help, for the wisdom only experience can teach. It is a burden and a blessing. I have held mothers as they cry their tears at death. I have celebrated with friends as their baby comes home a joy I never had. As much as I understand a path life has called them to walk, though I have experienced certain sounds and smells—their experience is unique. Their pain is their own. Mine is my own. Each of us has our own pain that no human can understand, that is the role of our Brother Jesus Christ.

Yet here we are relating our experiences to each other, it is a good practice. When it comes to others pain and trying to understand them, not judging them or telling them how they should be, how you think you would be in the same situation? I have appreciated others sharing their common pain with me, it links us closer. We NICU moms, we PICU moms, we angel moms. So here I am in the grocery store, my new friend, knows someone, who knows someone, she too is in a wheelchair… but listen to this, her husband was hit by a bus. I am not sure of what my expression was, she took it as shock—I mean really, people don’t get hit by a bus. She continued with all the drama that our story has to tell… tears in my eyes, my throat tight. It was the first time I had heard someone else tell the story. I could see that it helped her, she wanted it to help me, at least I wasn’t as bad as that lady… She was trying to uplift me with stories of how it could be worse. It’s ironic. It’s funny. And with it and other experiences I began to see how the last few years were not just for us, that in sharing Katelynn with each of you we also shared a piece of our hearts raw, and pulsating for good and bad with anyone who heard the story our testimony of God’s power.

I said I was not prepared to deal with the side effects of sharing our story. I wasn’t prepared for the praise, it made me uncomfortable to be praised for surviving—I didn’t realize how others were watching. I did what I did for the man who calls me wife, the little people that call me mom. We lived our life and the circumstances that we were dealt—with faith and gratitude for what we do have. Our knowledge of an atoning Savior who makes all things possible, even thriving amongst tragedy. For whatever reason I cannot comfortably examine, the Lord has chosen to make many of our challenges public and thus making manifest His hand. The lady in the grocery store told my story to a lady in a wheelchair, she meant to inspire me. I never told her it was me, it wasn’t important that she know who - its not about us - really the story I have to tell, the story I was made to tell, is a story, it’s a good story. It’s a long story. I didn’t ask to tell it, honestly I don’t want to be the lady that makes people cry I much rather put them at ease with a funny story... like the one about the constipated cat, it s good one ask me about it, great sound effects…

I also wasn’t prepared for the voice that would speak against me. I wasn’t prepared to be attacked. Was I naive to think that a protective bubble should be drawn around grieving parents? I do think that there should be, and for those of you who know someone who has lost a child - give them the benefit of the doubt. My faults are mine to work through as are each of ours. I don’t wish to discuss this publicly, as it is the words I have written here about my daughter, the actions I took in how I moved forward from her death. I mention this as an explanation, not to the persons who have removed themselves from us, but to explain my silence to those of you who read Katelynn’s life. I let the voice of few silence my voice. I have been writing, but not posting them on the FB/ blog.

After the heart attack I gave a talk at my churches girl’s camp. Originally I had been asked to speak on image. It is something I do with my job. But because of the heart attack I knew that I had to speak to some of what that experience taught us. I talked of the miracle; I talked of my love for my husband. I challenged the girls to prepare for lives challenges so that when they come that they will know that God will comfort them – that they will find peace in their darkest moments.

A friend of mine, who also happens to work as an editor, heard that talk. She said I should write a book. What a funny idea, me write a book! I have never thought of that. I assured her that I am not a writer. Then the FB page/ blog, when the topic came up again she said no, I was a writer. This was a surprise to me. Yes I got A in school for my writing. This doesn’t mean one should write a book. I am not a gramatitian—that is clear. Run on sentences, sign language grammar, and the use of (---) well, I am not a writer. Well, evidently I am a writer. On February 4th I took my book outline, and five or so chapters. She loved it, she was not terrified by my run on sentences… she loved my transitions, the humor—well she liked it. I agreed to write the book. Since then I have chosen the title it is “ More laughter than tears” It will be sometime in coming, as I am busy enough. I have committed to give a transcript at the end of Ailsa’s first grade year. She started kindergarten this week. I am not anxious to put my tender feelings out for whom ever can pick them off a shelf. That said I realize that this is something I am to do. Not to immortalize Katelynn, her life needs no more meaning and purpose than it has, her work is complete. She has done her mission well. This much to my shock, is something I am to do. I have been asked to do some speeches from women’s groups, to more girl’s camp, and some volunteer groups. I have a story that others want to hear, that helps them, and an angel whom I can’t disappoint. God asks of each of us a purpose. The one I wanted, I don’t get. So wa-wa—I am moving forward with the path I am on. A little limp, a hole in my heart, hand in hand with my husband, and joy in the knowledge that I will see Katelynn again. I hope to make all three of my children proud.

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