Rainy Days and Angels

It poured last night. The rain wrecked me because the rain brought back so many memories involving Chip. Chip and I loved being trapped inside on rainy days together. When we weren't together on a rainy day or night, we would text back and forth about memories we had made in the rain while dancing at music festivals, huddling in camping tents, lingering in bars waiting for the rain to subside, or spending time in his Ford F150 truck talking about our hopes, dreams and desires. Tina Turner's "I Can't Stand the Rain" was our theme song at times when we were apart and the rain fell, so we would text each other a YouTube video or a lyric from the song. We would also text how we ached to be together again in the rain. The rain last night also reminded me of another rainy day that had nothing to do with Chip. It does have everything to do with my faith in God, my belief in angels and my belief in the power of prayer (all of which is keeping me afloat after losing him). I found the note just now that I had written the morning before my infant, mostly-breastfed son Sam was to go under anesthesia (so he couldn't breastfeed for 8 hours) to have a PICC line placed in order to receive infusions. The experimental treatments (never given before to a child like Sam) weren't for Sam to receive chemo (Chip received his chemo via infusion), but were going to be given as a possible way to treat the rare autoimmune disorder he had at the time (which appears all but resolved at this point). So many of the thoughts and feelings swirling around my brain about Chip are reflected in this story I wrote on October 10, 2010 (with minor edits) about my experience with Sam at the time. I wrote:

At 10:00 yesterday morning, with one hour to go until Sam's NPO would end and he would go under anesthesia for his PICC, I headed to the Healing Garden.  It's a patio on the 6th floor of the hospital overlooking Pittsburgh and full of different plants.  Sam loves a little blue bench perfectly sized for children aged about 3-5 years old.  It makes Sam feel like a very big boy when he sits in it!  Despite the rain, I knew it would be a relaxing place to spend the last hour of torture for Sam.

We walked back and forth under the overhang, about 16 steps one way and 16 steps back.  I occasionally put Sam's tiny hand out to feel the raindrops and I kissed them away lovingly. Sam continued to cry and fuss despite my efforts to distract him.  In between cries and a scrunched up "mad" face, he would look at me with those big, brown eyes and say "Why aren't you giving me what I want?  Why has it been the case for 8-1/2 months that you have given of yourself for my comfort and nutrition and now all the sudden you're acting like you don't know my signals?  What's your problem, Lady?!"

As the minutes ticked by, I felt my emotions and my logic fighting for my neural circuitry.  Logic told me "Just 45 more minutes" and "He can't eat because he could aspirate his stomach contents during his procedure."  Emotion fought back with "Love and nurture your baby" and "You know what it will take to make him happy."  As the fight raged on in my head, I told Sam it would be OK and sang quietly to him with an ever-increasing quiver in my voice. I tried to fight emotion back, but logic was knowingly and gracefully conceding more and more of my brain power to emotion. I began to succumb.  For all the good that logic had done for me so far in Sam's case, I knew it was time for emotion to take over.  

The floodgates opened.  I felt alone there in the rain with Sam on this bleak day in a city far from home.  I felt thankful for the friends and family who had given so much of themselves during our times of crisis during these past 6 months.  I felt sorry that maybe I hadn't done enough for others in times of their need.  I felt scared that Sam might not wake from his anesthesia and that he could die from the treatment he was scheduled to receive.  I felt lonely and wished my other kids and Steve were here with Sam and me.  I felt tired from all the nights in the hospital and weeks of worrying that Sam wasn't getting much better.  I was relieved to be here in Pittsburgh, but felt frustrated by not knowing that I could have done more to advocate for him while the doctors in Norfolk let Sam's illness drag on for 6 months without looking for answers elsewhere.  Forget about frustrated with the CHKD doctors, I was outright angry...no furious...no homicidal.  Then, all the parents of sick children who don't have the capacity or connections that I have been blessed with came to mind, and I felt hopeful that I could make a difference somehow by sharing what I have learned.  All the emotions that I had managed and controlled perfectly from time to time and one at a time, flowed about my brain all at once created a weakening in my legs and heaviness in my heart.

Just then, the angel appeared.  Her name was Liz and she was wearing a bright purple smock that the volunteers at CHOP wear.  She was about 70-ish and very pretty...I could tell from her wrinkle lines that she had lead a happy life and smiled often.  Her eyes were warm and loving.   She said that she used to be a pediatric nurse and that she was well-experienced with successful outcomes to health struggles both professionally and personally.  She asked me questions about Sam's condition and what the doctors had planned for him.  I asked her questions about where she'd grown up and how she chose nursing as a profession.  And then, she asked the deadly question "And how are you, Mom?" (Don't go asking me that question when I'm trying to remain logical and to stave off emotion!).  I began to sob.

She told me that in this situation she knew her "humanness could serve no purpose," and she asked me if she could pray.  I sputtered "of course" and she began to pray while Sam and I cried.  She prayed at a rate that I had never heard before, fast and without taking a breath.  She uttered a combination of words in her prayer that I had never considered...praying that God's power of healing, ultimate wisdom and love was so much greater than the words the doctors had laid on Sam about his diagnosis and treatment.  She told me how we had to forget all the words that the humans had spoken and listen only to God's words.  Liz told me how God had guided her here to this place with a mother and child in need and that she was there to tell me of God's power over and will for Sam and me.  She spoke words of comfort as she told me that God loved Sam more than I could ever love him and that no amount of humanness could be greater than what God could do for Sam.  Her words came in a spiritual light that I had witnessed before and I recognized it well.  

After about a few minutes of prayer over Sam and me and telling me about God's greatness, Sam stopped crying and fussing. She continued her rapid outpouring of prayer and comfort ("Had she even taken one breath?" I wondered) for what seemed like forever.  When she finally paused, she sang "Jesus Loves Me" to Sam with verses I had never heard.  Sam fussed a few more times, but not nearly to the extent that he had when he was left with his Mama working on logic and emotion alone.  I stopped crying. Logic and emotion officially released me until I needed them again.  At this moment, I allowed only my spirituality to flourish and control my thoughts. I soaked up Liz's words of prayer, her beautiful, kind face and her song.  I fully accepted that God had sent her to me to lift me as I was falling.  

When it was time, she left me through the double glass, automatic doors that she had used to enter the Healing Garden.  Her purple smock became less and less visible as she walked across the atrium, turning frequently to look back at me and smile.  I let her go, all the while checking every second or so to see if she was still there for me.  I glanced at her one last time near the elevators, about 50 yards inside the building from me, and I looked down at Sam and told him that the angel was saying it was time to walk in God's light now and to go back into the building and up to his room to wait for transport to take him for his PICC placement in radiology.  The next time I looked, she was no longer there.