Broken, battered and bruised

The only thing that comes after the pain and the heartache is the healing.

My heart is in pain, my stomach, my spirit is in pain, my emotions, my psyche, my physical self. I ache all over. I can barely move myself around the house. Yes we are home.

Since yesterday at 2:30pm Jonah started keeping food down and making remarkable improvements, and with his healing, my wounds are open and layed bare waiting for the scabs and scars to start forming.

I have been a physical and emotional mess since yesterday. I can hold it together for short periods of time until the tornado of emotions flare up. I vacillate on a teeter-totter or joy and sorrow. I have boughts from a few tears to outright sob ,uncontrollable outpouring of the bottled up emotions that have been hiding deep within this last week. This is one roller coaster I hope God destroys.

I can't even describe to you the utter feeling of helplessness that accompanies a call that your son can't walk, to be in your own state of emergency and no be able to run to your child's side where he needs you. To hear him calling your name in confusing and fear and not be able to get to him. It was horrible. Then to walk into the the hospital room and see your vibrant, talkative, energetic, bright boy reduced to almost nothing of what he was like just a few days prior. I felt instantly like I had lost him. I had lost him. Though he was here in body and he was alive, he was not my little Jonah. His eyes flashed and the corners of his mouth curved up when he saw me and I KNEW he was as excited as I was to be in his presence. But my neck missed his little arms wrapped around me, the whisper of an I love you in my ear. The unknown as huge as a gaping ugly hole between us. To put it mildly I was devastated.

I couldn't even enjoy his little smile, the way his eyes curved under those huge brown jewels, the way his cheeks piled up to form little apples and his chin pointed down in mystery. It was gone. No laugh, no joy as his name suggests.

And in the same wordlessness I have for describing those feelings are also the feelings of utter peace and grace bestowed upon us by our Creator. It is truly indescribable. It does indeed surpass all understanding, it was the only thing what was holding me up. Literally allowing enough strength to survive the day, the doctors rambling, the vomiting, the pain, all of it. I pray now for that same peace to continue to cloak us and guard our hearts, we need it so badly.

Some of the sobbing today is from utter relief, though our ordeal is far from over, we are on the upswing. It is so hard to hear Jonah speak so slowly and labored when he used to talk a mile a minute! My heart aches for all the time I asked him to stop talking or got irritated at the endless questions he would ask. I watch him so proudly sit up on his own for a few seconds before falling back, and my heart aches for the times I wised he would sit still and not run around like a monkey. All the things that I've done and said without thinking, without regard to the blessing my kids are to me, taking them for granted fully. I have. For the times I wished I could have a break, take a vacation. For the times I've been so irritated by their antics. I've cried, I've begged God to not let me forget this experience in light of that. To take all these moments and cherish them, even the most simple ones. I so easily could have been robbed of all that.

What is really important in this life is before me in these little blessings. The other sobs came from overwhelming joy that Jonah was healing, that he is getting better everyday, that God hears and answers our prayers to make his little body better. So many parents don't come home with their child, as we did. Even though life will be different for a while and we have lots of adjustments to make, he is here, and he is still the vibrant gift of God given to us almost 5 years ago, even if he moves and speaks a bit slower for a while.

Now this mess of a Mom needs to go crawl in bed.

for more posts on Jonah please visit: http://hawaiianheldts.xanga.com/weblog