Friday, March 30, 2018

     So many people see me today, read my social media statuses and hear all I have done in the last 6 years and they think I am healed. I find that word funny. Healed. Is there really healing when you believed in something so strongly for your entire life and in an instant it was taken from you? Can you come back from such an explosion and look even a little bit like you did before?

     So I don't watch a ton of tv. I just don't have the time and now that my boys are older, they have things they want to watch and do and I refuse to have more then a couple of tv's in our home. So I have a few favorite shows and watch when I put my boys to bed. One of those being Grey's Anatomy. It has been something I have watched since it started. Its been there with each of my children. It was a show I watched with a sleeping Sterling in my arms. I struggled to watch after he died because, if you watch too, it can be very realistic.

     I've always loved the character of April Kepner.  Weird, I know. She was kind of annoying when she first started with all her ideals and ideas about God and life and her awkwardness. But I saw me in her. I was naive too. Believed strongly that if I just followed the rules and lived a good life and did good things, I would be ok. I believed in prayer. My life wasn't easy. I can say this now, the things that shook my world then, it was easy to see the why when the good followed. The "that's why this happened! To get me here for this!"

     And then Sterling, my beautiful 13 month 2 weeks and 6 day old son, stopped breathing. I picked him up praying for God to help me. To please, please don't take him from us. I bargained with God while Sterling laid in a hospital bed for 2 days. I would do anything, give up everything and go anywhere, just please don't take him from me, from his brothers and sissy. Even as they silenced the alarms as I held him in my arms, I prayed. Sudden healing, its a thing right?! You are God! Work your miracles and we will spend the rest of our lives telling the world how amazing our God is!

     Sterling died anyway. My heart didn't just break, it shattered. Violently. My body ached. My children fell apart. Our world became scary. We had to learn to live without Sterling here. But it was more then just losing him. Everything I had ever known, the safety of my neat little world, gone. Just like that. And it was terrifying. I continued to pray for a while. But the pain was so intense. And I felt no relief. And all the well meaning people trying to tell me this was His plan and He would work good out of this, it didn't ease my heart or mind, it brought even more pain.

      I didn't care if anything good came from this, I still don't. I just wanted and still want my son back in my arms. Sterling wasn't a job or a house or a car that I lost and can replace with something just as good or even better. He was an amazing boy who made our family feel complete, whole. I turned away from religion and even God. I felt betrayed by Him. I felt abandoned and alone, for years. I sought people out to ask their help in figuring this out, and I know, once again, they meant well, they just put it too nicely together. Too glitchy, made it too easy. I still love them deeply for trying, for never giving up on me.

     Its not easy for me. I can't ever really describe the horror of that day well enough. Even if you think you understand, I really don't believe you can unless you have lived it. My son died. I pumped his chest, terrified I might break his ribs. I breathed my air into his mouth, only to have it gurgle back into mine, something I would taste for months after. I had to answer questions, from the beginning and for months after, because people needed to be sure I didn't harm my child. I lost friends because my grief, my pain, was too much for them to see and sit with. I feared losing my other children because that is what happens when a child dies without an obvious cause. I felt so abandoned. Like I was being punished for some reason and I couldn't understand.

     Before I get the messages, I don't live in this place anymore. I went to therapy, alone and with my kids. I talked and talked with other parents who have lost children. I slowly began talking to God again. But my relationships are different now. I am different now. I don't understand why this happened to me, to my family. I now believe that God isn't in quite the control I used to believe he was. I now believe bad things happen all the time, all over the world. There is no rhyme or reason for it. I don't believe Sterling died so I would speak out and save other children. My child was not a sacrifice for yours, at all. Your child isn't worth more then mine.

     I believe my anger and sadness propelled me to do more. But I also know this kind of pain and sadness happens to other people and it breaks them. So I know we aren't chosen because we can handle it. And yes, a tv show and a character brought this blog post out of me. It's not a new idea for me, I have been struggling for the last 6 years with this. And I think, to some extent, I will struggle for the rest of my life with it. Because I like things to fit neatly into their place. I like to think that if I behave this way, I know the results. It is extremely hard for me knowing that isn't how it works. That we all just do the best we can in the moment.

     So thank you Grey's and Sarah Drew and all the people who created and told this story. Once again you came so close to real life. And as someone who sees so much of herself in a character, I appreciate it. It makes this journey a little less lonely knowing others get it and are willing to talk about it.

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