This is not our first rodeo. We have traveled this road more times than I can count.
As I walked once again away from the ‘kissing corner,’ my mind replayed a thousand images of times spent watching her as they wheel her down the hall out of our presence while my heart cried out within. Hold it all together though for her sake. She needs all the strength she can muster to just make it through one more time.
One more time. Will you allow her that today, Lord? Will you allow us to come out of this day on the other side with her still by our side? Or is today the day?
I lost it hard yesterday. I have tried and tried to hold it all together but it just became too much. And as your divine details kept unfolding, I fell apart. I hope it was a beautiful mess; it really just felt like desperate chaos.
So my mind keeps replaying all these images of times you have asked me to hold it all together as I had to hold her up. But if I am honest, it seems so unfair.
Why should a 16-year-old daughter have to wipe the puke off the floor after helping her mom clean off her feces and settle into the madness of her mind while she does her best to just lie still? Why did you make me see her that night as she walked right into me and had no idea who I even was? Why did I spend countless hours taking care of her when I could barely take care of myself?
That one night stole so much. I lost my mother much too young, only to spend more hours in a hospital or doctor’s office than most people do in a lifetime combined, and I am only 41. I know the drill all too well. The nurse will come in and ask a thousand questions, interrupted by the surgical nurse or the anaesthesiologist or the surgeon or labs. If I could cry a tear for every drop of blood I have watched them steal from her weakened soul, I would flood the hearts of too many.
My heart feels the flood. Like I am holding up the dam by a measly whisk of breath and at any moment I know it will all come crashing down if I dare to even steal a whisper begging for mercy.
It leaked yesterday. For a few small moments as a dear friend held me close, I let some of it out. But how do I account for twenty-four years of dammed emotions because she couldn’t be my strength. I had to be hers.
I am trying my best today to be her strength, and to just hold tight. But, God, it is harder today than normal. For just a few moments, I need to be a kid again. A 16-year-old girl who is free to laugh and live and have a mom who will take care of it all. But I am not a kid anymore, and the innocence stolen will forever play on repeat in my mind every time I have to once again sit here in these forsaken waiting rooms. God, I have grown weary of waiting. When will you let it end? Or better yet, when will we get a new beginning?
I guess I could say I wish life had a reset, and we could start anew, back to the beginning. We could go back to the 1995 Lesa who was young and free without a care in the world. But then I wouldn’t have You. And as hard as today is, You really are enough. So I trust in you to be enough in me today. Because I need you. Oh, I need you. Every hour of every day. I need you to be enough in me. yae.
One more time.
