Tower

-
Right now it is after midnight...
The house is mostly quiet,
the background rumble of the clothes in the dryer....
and the crime documentary playing softly across the room from me.
Thats all I can hear...
Everyone asleep...
everyone but me.

I laid down for a few minutes....
but quickly realized sleep was not ready to come.

My mind is overflowing....
So.
Many.
Thoughts.

A lot of the things floating around in my head tonight....and yesterday, and last week....
I refuse to speak out loud.
Many of them...I try to drown out with prayer..... silence them before they take me over....sometimes it works.... but they always come back.
And to be honest....a lot of my prayers end in angry cries.....

One thing seems to stack upon the next....
and the tower grows higher, and higher still....
Until something small, a feather....
taps it ever so slightly....and the pieces fall into my lap...
tear soaked and messy.

Each morning I wipe my lap clean...brush the mess onto the floor as I get up.
Throughout the day, I step over the pile of stress.....One foot over the other....
and by the end of the day the pile has moved its way back into my head.....
Rinse and repeat...
Every.
Day.

Parklen has been wading his way through his days too...
He has ups and downs...
He feels sad, and happy and scared....
He feels good and bad and tired and angry...
He cries...

We've been talking in our quiet moments...
He asks me if I think he is going to die...
I say, "I don't....."
He wakes up at night with nightmares...
He asks me before bed, "What if I don't wake up?"

He lived in much worse health for many years.
He is not nearly as sick as he was before...
Its just simple fact...
He isn't.

But I think that he feels something coming..
And I think that feeling good for quite some time...
has just made how he feels now, scary.

About a year after his transplant, I asked Parklen if he remembered what it was like to be so sick....
He barely could...
Through conversations about surgeries and treatments and hospital scares....Parklen would often say, "I kind of remember that...."
and I counted that as a blessing...
But It seems like him not remembering the terrible portions of his life...have made this time...seem worse than it is.  If only he knew how sick he was before...but I suppose Im thankful he doesn't...and I pray he never gets the chance to re-learn.

I cannot convince him that it is going to be ok.
The only answer that Parklen will accept when it comes to his worries is this;
"I don't know what is going to happen, but God does....and the only thing I can say for sure, is that I will be by your side no matter what....and we will do this together."

And so I pray again....
That God will lift me up...
though I feel so broken...
That he will piece me back together...
and reinforce what once was there....
So that I can be strong for Parklen...
So I can help to give him a life that feels better for him...





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time

-
Image
It sure has been some time. Time since I sat before this blank page that used to bring me such comfort.  Time since I shared deep feelings.. Time since I opened the curtain into my heart, for all to see. Time ticks by. Ever quickly. They say that time heals all wounds... I think anyone who has suffered a broken heart, knows thats not the truth, Who are they  anyway? Time forms. Like the hands of the potter... moving, moulding, squeezing, pinching. As the clay spins, the potter changes it. It isn't healed, it is... becoming something new. That is what time does. It changes us. Into something new. Forms. Different. Pressure is no stranger to me. My life has been woven with the thread of pain, of squeezing discomfort. Tension. Difficulties, Heartache. I recently found myself in thought about who I was. Who I have been.. The little girl, the teenager, the new wife, the young mother, the hospital mom, the friend, the estranged, the sister. I. Have. Changed. I am new. I am different...
Read more

{zero}

-
Image
Today will go down in the books as the longest day ever........ Day Zero. Transplant day. The new beginning. We started the festivities this morning at 4:00 AM......After just going to bed a couple of hours earlier, this was pretty early!!!! Paysen and I headed down to check in for his surgery....you could see the nerves on his face, I could feel them in his tiny hand that I held with in mine.. He had been looking toward this surgery for over a month. There had been so many delays, I can only imagine the things that were going on in My big boy's head...... He mustered the strength to show a brave face, however difficult. We checked him in and headed up. He took comfort in having both parents present for him. He listened as the "Sleep doctor" told of what she would do..... as we watched him we could see the clock ticking, he was growing more nervous. Paysen had a traumatic event in the operating room. It was the worst thing I have witnessed before a s...
Read more

26 days.............

-
Image
Twenty six days ago I loaded the Honda up with enough stuff for a one day trip to Denver....... Four Wednesdays, Four weekend visits with our other half....624 hours.....Twenty six days....and Parklen, Phinlynn and I are still here. Parklen's illness has seemed to steadily increase...as time has gone on, each flare up has outdone the last.  This was the worst one yet.  This one made him sicker than he has been,  this one caused concern in everyone that knows Parklen.  This stay in the hospital included a tiny infant to nurse and care for.....this stay included frequent discussion about Parklen's future....and a three ring binder handed to every parent about to take their child into a bone marrow transplant. A binder filled with facts......a binder that will make your mommy tummy churn...... I have spent much time thumbing through the pages of this BMT book.....reading over risks, skimming through rules.....every moment realizing that if I EVER thought...
Read more