Double Life
Every day I am multiple people all wrapped into one.
I live a "normal" life. Loving wife and mother. Attending wrestling practice, dropping and picking up my son from school.....cooking dinner, cleaning...(just kidding, I dont clean much)
I try and put on my smile, I try and make small talk with people. I do what I can.
My other life is much darker than the average. I force smiles to keep from tears. I hold my youngest boy tightly......I adminester meds, I adjust oxygen...I prepare him for chest treatments, I clean up vomit and wipe tears. I watch Parklen sleep.....I pray every moment.
I try to push down the emotions that rise in my throat. I cry. I cry a lot. I think of the future and how much is unknown. I worry.....I feel guilty about worrying because I know who holds the future. But I worry still.
I struggle with lonliness....telling my best of friends they cannot come over. This is Parklen's safe place and I would rather be alone that introduce the potential of more sickness. I get frustrated with trying to explain how he is doing. I feel like a broken record when I say, "not well."
I feel like a fraud in both of my lives. The happy life of the every day norm feels wrong because Parklen is so sick. The sad life of the sickness feels wrong becuase of the other lives being lived under our roof and their need for my attention.
The balance is hard, nearly impossible. The situation is out of my control. I can do nothing more than the best I can....... I can hold on, only to the hope, of a better situation.
Parklen and I are heading back to the hopsital in a few days. He will be there for several days while they try and figure some stuff out. Truth is, there isnt a cut and dry here. There isnt a known solution. There isnt a right and wrong. There are only maybe's and might be's.
You would truly think that after so many years of these trips, they would be as natural as breathing.....and in a way, they may just be. However, they are no easeir today than they were four years, one month and three weeks ago. My heart aches in the same way, and the tears fall in the same direction as they did then.
Some days I wonder...."how much longer?" and the answer doesnt come. some days I think I have hit my limit....and I am forced to go on. But, every single day that I breathe I know the truth.... It doesnt matter how long, it doesnt matter. Life is but a blink of an eye, and its what I choose to do with my every day that counts. In spite of my situation, regardless of my pain.....I choose to love and I choose to trust God. When I lay awake at night, and the questions fill my mind, it is this fact alone that brings a sense of peace. It is this fact that drags my sad and sorrowful self out of bed each morning. It is this knowledge that sorrow is temperary, and that hardships develop character, that keep my eyes towards him. It is knowing that none of this situation is permanent no matter how much it may seem to be.
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