Is it Christmas? Is it New Year’s? Do we even know anymore? We have tried our best to celebrate and we have (just barely) made it through 2023. A marathon of hospital visits in May, October, December, and again in December.
I hear fireworks in the distance, our hotel room creatures are asleep, our hospital room babe is in his crib, and I wish him happy new year through the creepy, wonderful, hospital cameras. I watch him sleep as our family is separated for another holiday.
I don’t know what you want to leave behind, carry forward, or have grace for in the new year.
I hope you know God is doing something in this whole crazy mess, He has to be, I decided.
It is true that our Christmas Eve sudden second hospital stay for the month has not our favorite, nor were multiple ER stays prior to the finale of another ambulance ride ringing in the holiday. But we are alive, sweet Sammy is fighting onward, we will (God willing) get through his second open-heart surgery this Wednesday, and our hearts are still somehow beating to the rhythm of this unknown situation surrounding us.
You do what you have to do, that’s what I learned in 2023. You notice tiny graces and you keep waking up, determined to do everything you can, and give it to Jesus, because we have no other choice.
I’ll continue to ask a million impossible questions about my son’s valve that is severely leaking, while also praying over him constantly. Continue to give thanks for his cardiologist who texts us and helps us even on Christmas. I’ll continue to breathe a sigh of relief for both grandmas being here at different points.
Right now, as it is two minutes to midnight, I’ll continue to lay on one inch of the bed while my daughter takes up the rest of it. Continue to tell a story of celebration amidst deep heartache. Continue to cry. Continue to laugh. Continue to ask doctors to draw me pictures of my baby’s heart, in hopes to find a solution that will give me peace. Continue to ask God for peace. Continue to sleep in the few hours my brain lets me. Continue to stay awake thinking about Sammy’s smile. His coos. His winning over every single medical professional. Continue to pet Moose. Continue to write what seems like the same post over and over and over again as our life is on repeat with more hospital trips. Continue to remember we have a God who hears us. Continue to ask Him to hear the cries of my heart for my baby to have abundant life and healing.
It’s not that I disliked 2023. Well, maybe some of it. It’s that it knocked me over into fetal position, while also giving me the energy I never thought I had to fight for our baby. It gave me the sadness to see others’ pain, even more than I did in the times I sat beside clients experiencing grief. It gave me moments to soak up everything and nothing with our babies, as nights fell into mornings, fell into nights at the hospital, and I didn’t even care what holiday it was.
It’s fit for fireworks to keep going off in Phoenix right now. They will not let up. They won’t. Even if I refuse to believe it’s been October, November, December, now January, for what is this if not a strange space time hospital continuum? Still, fireworks signal that we’re done, we made it, we may not be done with everything. We may still have impossible questions that I’m not going to pretend are okay (how much valve tissue does my son actually have?). I don’t have any answers, and that’s okay. I used to want each year tied up in a bow and this year I won’t get that, not at all. Surgery on January 3, say everybody. We’ll climb on through; we won’t pause to reflect. We will keep going. A sprint is a sprint is a sprint.
It’s okay though. I won’t try to make it “right” this year. I’ll accept where we are, and pray boldly for manna for each day. Please pray boldly with us. We trust you Lord, we do.
Julie- Your words ....I know I am sacred ground as I read them. We are praying for your family and your precious baby boy. You- my dear- are a marvel....expressing your vulnerability is such a gift to share with us from your one inch of space.....it's quite an inch. Your words empower, strengthen, and encourage my own faith enlarge my compassion, and strengthen my resolve . love, the Paxtons