Remembering Jess

I put the flowers in the center of the table and stood back to admire the way the sun was shining through their colors.  My headphones were in my ears and connected to the phone in my pocket, but all was silent. The podcast had been paused in response to the text I had received a few minutes earlier from my friend, Brandy.

"Hey" it said, "I put a surprise for u by your front door."

I had been cleaning all morning while the kids and Brian were playing at the water park - a Move Fast And Scrub Hard cleaning that felt both refreshing and rejuvenating - but I had put the scrubber down to open the front door, and there the flowers had greeted me.

And now here they were, casting their beauty as a finishing touch to my freshly scrubbed kitchen. And it was quiet.  So quiet.  Even unnaturally quiet because of the silent headphones that plugged out the sounds of a living world.  Quiet enough for me to hear my own thoughts and feel my own heart as I stood and admired.  I re-read the handwritten note tied to the vase and when I reached the last phrase, something inside of me broke.

I thought you might need some cheer today.

Standing there alone in my kitchen the tears started to flow, and I wondered how she knew.  How did she know that I would need a little extra cheer this day?  This day of all days on the anniversary of Jess's birth. My heart stirred with gratitude for the gesture of a friend who cared. This one perfectly timed vase of flowers made me feel loved, and after all these moves and all the little friendships that were promising but simply never had enough time to grow, it meant something beautiful to my heart. I did need some cheer.

And I felt grateful that someone knew.

Eventually the house was clean and Brian and the kids came home from their day at the water park, so we piled into the van and made our way to the grounds of the temple.  An annual tradition that has become a happy part of my life.

"Do you know why we come to the temple on Jess's birthday?" I asked my children.
"To celebrate that he is sealed to us forever," Carson and McKenzie understood.  Miles was confused, however, and it provided a beautiful chance to talk to him and explain exactly what that means.

Teek was uninterested in having any sort of a quiet, spiritual conversation, so he made things a little difficult, but he was so darn cute that we forgave him pretty darn quick.

Halfway through our Taco Bell picnic on the temple lawn, a security officer hiked down the rocks behind us to inform us that, while we were welcome to sit on the lawn and enjoy the spirit of the temple grounds, we were actually not allowed to picnic. He was sorry, he said, about that.  And so sorry, he said, to interrupt our family time. So we packed up the food and set it by a tree next to us.

Fifteen minutes later, the same security guard hiked back down the same hill and, after asking if he could take a family picture for us, told us the exact same thing: we were not allowed to picnic on the lawns.  We explained that we had packed up our food and were not eating anymore, but we could tell that something about us being there with a bag of food and a picnic blanket made him uncomfortable.  So we thanked him for the picture and then packed ourselves up to walk around and enjoy the beauty of the temple from other vantage points.

Notice McKenzie's smile above?  She's rather excited about it. After these pictures, she exclaimed, "Hey mom! I learned a new way to smile that is so easy I don't even have to think about it!  All I have to do is curl my top lip underneath itself... like this... and prop it up on my braces.  So easy!"  I looked back through the pictures on my phone and gently remarked that, while it certainly did look easy, it wasn't a very becoming look and maybe she could muster the strength every once in a while to smile normally?

This next picture is one of my new favorites.  They are getting so big, and I can't even believe how much I love them.  They are wise beyond their years and we have Jess to thank for much of that.  They have learned from a young age what it feels like to have a tie into the heavens - and how lucky they are for that.

I do wonder, occasionally, about how our family would be different if Jess had survived, but I have no doubts that this is the way God intended for him to be in our family. And just like the flowers from Brandy brightened my kitchen with love and color, Jess colors our family with a bright and beautiful love. He is a final touch in my life that brings loose ends together, that whispers to me that I am not alone, that reminds me that I am loved.  And though sometimes I ache to hold him and to know him the way I know my other kids, I see and know that the way I love him now is so extraordinarily beautiful just the way it is.

And someday when I am able to hold him and know him the way I know my other kids, I'm sure I'll not be surprised to find that he is extraordinarily beautiful.  So beautiful that he changed my life - in many beautiful ways - without even taking a breath.

Just by simply existing.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

I stood in the bathroom of our small, rented house in Hawaii and stared at the details of the picture hanging on the wall.  I'd already stared at it the previous day, and I knew I would stare at it again on the following.  Something about it was captivating to me.  It was much too small for the wall it was hanging on, it tilted a little too far counter-clockwise, and relatively important parts of the print itself were cut off because it was slightly too big for the frame.  But all of these things, that generally would have driven me crazy, gave the picture an ironic flavor that was impossible to ignore... because the print inside read:

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

And there I was, looking at all of these imperfections and seeing something beautiful - right there in the meaning of that quote.  I briefly wondered if the owner had purposefully been sloppy just to drive home a point.

In the days that have followed, this quote has become a favorite of mine, drifting in and out of my mind in wisps and fragments.  I think it will go down in the archives of my mind as a truth I hope to pass along to my children. Timely, too...

I suspect that much of the beauty I find in Vegas will be of the kind that I see, and less of the kind that I look at, and this intimidates the photographer side of me.  As photography has become more and more of a passion of mine, and since I've had my eye focused on beauty this year, I have learned that, without work, the camera simply captures what I look at.  It cannot add feelings or emotions or meanings-of-quotes - it cannot add the past stories or present hopes and dreams that might make the scene beautiful to me.  It simply records light.  And dark.  And colors. It's up to me then, as the photographer, to create the emotion behind it. I hope I will find as much joy in photography if I have to work so hard to create it.

But, photography aside, I'm feeling more and more confident that I will see lots of beauty in Vegas. And, I'm even feeling a measure of excitement as Brian soars through his very last two weeks as a student... ever... (wait, what?), and as we catapult ourselves into this new life of Real Job.

When I get there I'm going to try not to spend much time looking for beauty.
I'm just going to try to see it.

Connecting with a Child

You wake.  The rustling starts in your room - I feel it more than hear it.  And then the squeak of the hinges from your bedroom door fills the silence.  I hear your feet slapping against the tile floor before I see you.  And I don't know yet how our morning will go.  You come around the corner and stop to stare at me for a few seconds.  I drop whatever I'm doing and turn to you with a toothy smile and open arms and tell you how happy I am that you are awake.  Some mornings you climb into my lap.  Those are my favorite mornings because those mornings are easy.

Other mornings your eyebrows furrow in my direction.  Your shoulder turns as I reach for a hug and I see the anger in your eyes. On those mornings you make me work harder for that smile I love so much. But that smile comes, now.  If I work.  Always.
This is progress.

I've studied you.  For four years and seven months I've watched.
Learned.
Tried.
Failed.
Failed.
Failed.
And succeeded.

There is one lesson, one most important lesson, that I have learned about you.

You feel love through service.

It took me four years to figure out this truth in you.  Four years is much too long to find a truth as important as this, and for that I am sad.  But I am happy that it did not take longer.  I am happy I took the minutes, the hours, the days, the months, and the years to ponder about you.
Because now
I know.

It is not really in my nature to serve.  And you are good for me in that way.  You are making me into a better person because I care enough about you to change myself.  The progress is slow.  But it is moving.

It is not really in my nature to serve, even though my days are filled with serving.  But I see now that folding your laundry means little to you today.  Much greater is the time I take away from the folding to help you reach that toy.
To fill your cup with fresh water.
To tie that string around your toy car.
To read that storybook.
To serve you in ways that you feel,
ways that you see,
ways that you understand.

So that is why, on the days when you awake with furrowed eyebrows and anger in your eyes, I dance in service circles around you.  That is why, when I see that my service has erased your furrowed eyebrows and replaced the anger in your eyes with joy and love, you see my fist pump the air.

Because I love you.
Because I want you to know that.
Because I want you to feel that.
And that moment when my heart connects with yours and I know you've felt my love?
That is a beautiful moment.

New Year, New Direction

I always take a deep breath at the beginning of each year.  It's not really something I consciously do, and I admit that it's a little bit quirky, but it's something that has become so consistent in my life that I expect it, I wait for it, and when it comes I smile through it.  It's not so much a deep breath of preparation for coming months ahead, nor is it a deep breath for the completion of months behind...  It's mostly a deep breath that fills my lungs and my soul with insight about where I am in life right now, and with promise that the coming year will bring both happiness and growth (which sometimes are the same thing and other times are not).  The deep breath smells sweetly of fresh beginnings, of no mistakes, of potential, and it finally exhales into resolutions to be a little better, to try a little harder, to pray and smile and listen a little more, and to enjoy this journey of life that I am living.

This year my deep breath came on the second of January.  I closed my eyes when I felt it tickle in the back of my throat, I let it come deeply, and as it filled my lungs I thought about my life.  So many changes, I thought.  I've been through so many changes over the past year and I have so many changes coming up in the present one.  I felt a warm sense of accomplishment for the way I've handled the changes of the past year, and at the same time a sharp sting of resolve to handle the anticipation of the coming changes with more grace than I have been.  It's been ugly, folks... the anxiety of this upcoming move has kept me awake at nights and the sadness I feel at leaving this lush east-coast for the barren desert rolls around inside of me like barbed wire.  My mind has figuratively picked apart the desert countryside of my future and has been exploring the dark crevices of my fears.  But they remain dark.  I do wish the hot sun would shine on them and take the mystery away from their shadows, but that is not possible.  I don't like the ugliness I feel, so by the time my breath slowly exhaled I had made my new years resolution.  I will harvest beauty this year.

In order to help me with this goal, I've decided to give my blog over to the idea.  I've changed the title from Turning Tomorrow into Yesterday into Harvest Beauty, and I will try to write my posts accordingly.  I've found that, even through the darkest trials of my life, there is always beauty.  Always something to hold on to, always something that shows that God is mindful of us and of our lives.  This is my resolution this year.  To remember that in every life painting, there is a brush stroke of beauty.  Sometimes it's the entire painting itself, and other times it's hidden in the painting like a clever artists name.  Regardless of its size, my goal is to find it, recognize it, harvest it, and keep it in my heart.

I'm reminded of the story of Joseph of Egypt who harvested and stocked and saved for seven years while the crops were plentiful, and when the seven years of famine came he was ready and did not suffer. 

I will keep as much of the harvest here as I can so that it will be readily available to me (and to you if you want) when beauty is in short supply. 


Here's to a beautiful 2014.

Heart Attack Reflections

Eyeballs...  Balloons...  Sharks... 

To the average person, these three words would have little, if anything, in common.  But to me, they all evoke the same feeling in my heart.  Fear.  I don't recall the exact moment any of these things started haunting my existence, but it was long before the man I married decided to make his profession one of slicing eyeballs; long before I had children who require balloons at every single birthday; and long, long before I moved to an apartment right on the beach where sharks are swimming entirely too close to me.  Facing these fears on a regular basis has not curbed their intensity... in fact, if anything the intensity has been inflated.  I now have rules about how much Brian can share about his day with me (no hand motions to describe procedures (only words), and I do not look into ANY eyes as he's talking about it).  I have rules about the presence of balloons in my house (ONLY on birthdays and NEVER in the car).  And I have rules about when I will and will not enter into the ocean.  My family and I laugh at the irrationality of these fears (mostly my family), but the laughter doesn't seem to curb their intensity either.

In addition to these silly and rather irrational fears, I have one very real and rational fear.  One that I don't laugh about (ever), sometimes cry about when I even think about it, and can actually remember the exact moment it hit my heart and latched itself there like a leech.  It was early spring.  I had just gotten engaged and heard a terrible story of a newlywed couple who, on their way on their honeymoon, got in a car accident which killed the groom.  (Why do people even share these stories?)  That was it.  A new fear had been born because I all the sudden had someone in my life that I loved in a whole new way and that I simply couldn't imagine living without.  And with each passing anniversary, each new child, each rocky path conquered, that fear of losing this man I love has only grown because now he's that person in my life that I love even more. And more. And more.

We have had a few kind notes and phone calls this past month from friends and family who are remembering the events of last Christmas.  Their messages are so appreciated and all have the same wonderful tone: thinking of you, and so happy you are all healthy together this Christmas season.  Of course, I've been reflecting about the last year because, that's what I do, and one memory keeps working its way to the front of my mind.  It was Christmas Eve, and the day had been so very emotional. After tucking the children into bed and leaving them in the care of Grandma and Grandpa, I drove to the hospital with a suitcase full of presents to set up in the hospital room.  (I must have looked terrible because more than one group of people stopped and asked if I was alright. No, I wanted to say.  My 32 year old husband had a severe heart attack a couple of days ago, I'm 7 months pregnant, and I have three small children at home, so... I'm scared... and I don't know what my future looks like. But of course I just smiled and nodded.  They smiled back and we shared a silent understanding.  You're here on Christmas Eve, too...)  I walked into Brian's room, so happy he'd been moved from the ICU that morning, and tried quite unsuccessfully to hide my emotional face.  I felt it so important to not worry him with my own feelings quite yet because I wanted him to focus on himself, so I explained them away by simply saying that I felt a bit overwhelmed.  I tried to set Christmas up quickly but, being the perfectionist that I am, I ended up staying too long and felt supremely guilty when Brian admitted that my preparations were stressing him out.  I left the rest 'undone', kissed him, and tearfully made my way to the door to leave him alone to rest.  As I opened the door I heard him say, "Oh, Linds," his tone was gentle and sounded as if he'd just realized something important. "I'm so sorry." I looked back at him, laying in that hospital bed and he continued, emphasizing each word, "This is your biggest fear."

I waved my hand to dismiss it, again, not wanting him to worry for me just yet.  "I'm fine, dear," I said.  Though, I most certainly was not and I'm sure my tears blew my cover.  "Get some sleep and I'll see you in the morning.  I love you."

Of course, I'm lucky that I didn't actually have to live through my biggest fear last Christmas.  But boy did I have to stare that ugly thing down face to face.  It came much too close.  Close enough to touch, to smell, to taste and, worst of all, to feel.

But, now I see that an unexpected thing has happened. 

Unlike my fears of eyeballs, balloons and sharks that intensify when faced, facing the fear of losing Brian has interestingly diminished it.  To be clear, it is still my biggest fear, and I pray every single morning that the Lord will protect him and keep him safe because that is certainly a trial I never want to live through.  But.  I'm not so afraid of it as I once was.  And it's because, through those indescribable hours where I wasn't sure he would ever be coming home with me again, I dug to the root of myself and somehow knew that I would be okay.  Call it faith or madness, but it is perhaps the most empowering feeling I've ever felt... the feeling of knowing that, even if my biggest fear happened... I would be okay. 

Maybe that's what the Lord wanted to teach me through all of this.  To have faith in myself.  To have faith in Him and to know that I could get through anything... anything... with His help.  How blessed I feel that the Lord could teach me that lesson without making me live through the real thing.

Oh gosh.  How blessed I feel in that.

 Sometimes the rest of the picture is just so great that your poo-face just has to take one for the team.

This past year has been shoved full of so many experiences and memories that, because of our humble feelings of mortality, have been absolutely cherished.  We have lived this year and I have a folder bursting full of pictures to show it.  Of course, we have struggled and cried and wrestled and woken up exhausted just as much or more than other years because, evidently that's just life, but we have also laughed and loved and played and dreamed. We've hugged more and listened more and navigated through our disagreements with more love.  Brian and I are having very different experiences this year - me living a sort of dream, and him living a sort of nightmare - and for all the friction that could cause in our lives, we've still managed to respect each others feelings, to stick together and to feel part of the same team through it all. 

He is such a good man, guys.  And I am one lucky lady.

Don't Judge the Bird

I watched the seabird struggle against the wind.  His wings flap, flap, flapped and I could see from below the backwards progress he was making.  He was tilting from side to side and then in a moment of decision, folded his wings into his body and dove - beak first - into the choppy waters below.  He came up empty handed and the wind blew him back over the sand and the dunes.  His flight became more staggered and his elevation dropped and rose and dropped and rose as if he were being jerked around by a cruel and invisible puppeteer.  That is the most ungraceful bird I have ever seen I thought to myself.  His brothers in the air were able to maintain their level of grace and composure despite the high winds... what a funny bird.

He seemed so unsure of himself, so confused at how to use his wings that he kept my attention.  And then, just like that, I was surprised to see him open broadly his magnificent wings and use the winds to soar beautifully, gracefully, majestically through the air directly above my head.  As he passed above, I saw what had been hidden to me from the distance.  He hadn't come up empty handed after all; a giant, floppy fish hung from his tight talons.  A bigger fish than I'd ever seen a bird that size carry.  And as I watched him soar gracefully down the beach to find a place to feed, I realized that he had never been ungraceful.  He had been struggling.  With the fish.


This was interesting to me.  You know, I thought sadly, I wonder how often I've done that to other people.  It seems to me like we're all wrestling in mid-air with sometimes invisible-to-others issues that could make us appear ungraceful, or curt, or unfeeling, or snooty, or fillintheblank.  A problematic car with no money or time to fix it might make me prone to snap at my kids.  A friendship that is falling apart might cause me to appear distant to my husband.  A child who is struggling in school might make me unwilling to help a friend (okay, confession: all of those things have happened).  But most of us are good people who care about others, and who are trying the best we can.  And, thankfully, we all have moments when we soar through life majestically, too.  This bird made me resolve to look deeper, as I continue on through life and its ever changing making-friends-and-keeping-them cycles, and try to be the kind of friend who will look at another with understanding and compassion.  The kind of friend that will be more careful about not letting an impression hide the truth.

Because, as I learned today, someone who might seem ungraceful might actually be very graceful, but struggling instead.

Subtle Changes - The Wife's View

 
August.
I see it at the top of my calendar.
August.
And I know what they say.
August.
Eight months, they say.  Eight months after December.
And still I don't believe.  No matter how many ways I bend my brain, I cannot make sense of the reality that it's been eight months since I stood alone, gripping a friend's phone in that emergency room, watching doctors and nurses frantically work to save the life of my husband.
To be cliche, It Feels Like Yesterday.
Well...
Maybe not yesterday.
But certainly not eight months ago.

In March, a friend asked me over the phone if I felt like Brian's heart attack had changed me; if it had helped me realize the gift that Every Day is; if it reminded me to live fully in each moment.  I thought for a minute and then answered as honestly as I could.
"I wanted it to.  I thought it would."
But life still felt hard.  Our house wasn't selling (wasn't showing) and we had a newborn baby to care for.  Brian's energy was low and our stress levels were high.  Little things still irritated me sometimes and, darn it all, the kids still needed to eat every couple of hours.

More time passed and the stress of selling and moving and leaving grew.  And grew some more.  But my pregnancy related hormones started leveling out and Timothy started giving us longer stretches of sleep through the nights.  The aftershocks of the heart attack itself started subsiding and I found myself feeling a little more in control of the chaos that had become our lives.  And one night, I noticed that a small shift in service had taken place during the months.  Instead of asking Brian to finish the dishes for me, I had been doing them myself.  Instead of waiting for Brian to go get our late-night ice cream snack, I had preempted it and made my way to the freezer.  I pulled the sheets tighter when I made the bed in the mornings because I know that Brian does it for himself every night. And I thought, maybe I have changed a little after all.

The first Sunday in April, Brian stood in sacrament meeting and walked our little baby to the front of the room.  With a circle of men he stood and surrounded Timothy with the power of the priesthood and, in that setting, cradled our son in his hands to give him a blessing.  As he spoke I was overwhelmed by the simple fact that he. was. there.  I thought of the moments we'd shared that had been sandwiched between the heart attack and that minute of Timothy's blessing and felt the warmth of all the long hugs, the joy of all the laughs, the sweetness of all the tender conversations and even the sting of all the tears.  It was hearing Brian's voice blessing our child that made that moment even more special and even more cherished than it otherwise would have been.  And in appreciating that moment so deeply I thought, maybe I have changed a little bit after all. 

I have noticed that there is a substantial increase in the number of times I shrug my shoulders and genuinely mean it when I say, "Eh, it doesn't matter that much." In small things such as not being able to find time in the day to get dinner started, to personal things such as feeling a little too squishy in my bathing suit, to big things such as the thousands of dollars lost on our home.  I see that it is my faith that matters.  It is my husband that matters.  It is my children that matter.  It is relationships and love and trust and companionship and friendship and doing good for others and seeking the most delectable brand of chocolate ice cream that matters.  So, maybe I have changed a little bit after all.

This man... this incredible man holds a much deeper place in my heart today than ever before.  I can see that we have built our lives in, around, and through each other to an extent I still can't quite grasp.  Through the past eight months as I've contemplated just how close I came to losing him, I have started to see all the ways that he is literally a part of me.  I would not be who I am today without his influences on me, and I would not like to try to be me without him by my side.  I need him.  And despite what critics might say, I believe this is how God intended love to be... whole and completely encompassing.  Independent, yet so dependent.  I sometimes get scared to love him this deeply, but my faith reminds me that, should God call him away from me on this earth, we would continue in this love through the eternities.  In this new and more dependent depth of love, I see I have changed after all. 

It's just that I had expected the changes to be drastic, I suppose.  But I should know by now that change in myself doesn't happen drastically.  In fact, change happens so slowly that sometimes I wonder if it's even happening at all; so to have expected myself to never again feel irritated at a glass of spilled milk on the carpet, or shoes left (again) in the middle of the floor, was, simply, to be unfair.  But now I see that, maybe I have become a bit more thankful.  A bit more humble in the knowledge of our mortality.  A bit better at focusing on the eternal perspective of my life and a bit farther away from getting so distracted in the details of things that simply don't matter.

But as far as the day to day life goes, things feel... remarkably the same.  I've gotten used to hearing the sound of pill bottles being rattled in the mornings and evenings.  It just reminds me to be so thankful for all the medical miracles.  And I've gotten used to the slight discomfort I feel every. time. he. lifts something/walks quickly/goes for a run/looks stressed/wrestles with the kids.  It just means that I love him.

So I guess the heart attack has changed our lives.  Not drastically, and not outwardly, but significantly.  It's given us hard things to work through, wonderful things to cherish.  And oh, how lucky I feel to be living this day with him.  And if the wind makes my hair look like dandelion poof?  Well, that's just the small stuff.

Happy 11th anniversary, my love.  I pray that God has many, many more years planned for us. 

Three Month Face

Life has gotten busier.

I think it has something to do with this adorable face.

I keep thinking that if I was just a little bit more organized, and a little bit more diligent, and if I had a little bit of a nicer of a day planner, that life would magically fall into an easy pace. 

Then I'd be able to exercise, and edit pictures, and blog, and play forty games of Uno, and snuggle TK's warm body, and read a half an hour each night to each kid, and help with homework, and make a delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner for the family, and keep the house meticulously clean for all the home-buyers out there.  And take a nap.

But really, I'm kidding myself.  I think one of the biggest tests in this life is in learning how to balance.  In learning how to choose the necessities and to prioritize the rest.  Blogging is such an important part of my life.  I love to do it... I love to take and edit the pictures... I love to write.  And there are so many things I'd like to write about.  I get frustrated when I can't put as much time into this as I'd like.  I would like to write about everything... record all of my thoughts and feelings about all of my experiences. (Which... while maybe boring for you... would be so fun and fulfilling to me!)

But... then I see this beautiful face and remember that this season of my life is dedicated to him.  Sometimes I can't kiss those cute chubby cheeks and write about it.  So I have to choose.  Turns out I'll take kissing the chubby cuteness every time. 

He's ticklish.  Really.  It's about the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life.  I'm pretty sure none of my other babies giggled this young in response to a tickle.  A small grunt of a laugh, maybe.  But not giggling.  It might be my favorite thing about this little guy right now.  Though, picking a favorite is pretty tough.  Boy do we sure love this little guy.

All in

There is a home video clip, somewhere in my box of home video tapes, that was recorded over nine years ago.  It shows my brand new baby girl, McKenzie, snuggled tightly in Brian's arms and rocking back and forth in an old, hand-me-down rocking chair that matched all of our other furniture only in the way that they, too, were old hand-me-downs.  In the video, Brian and I laugh at the little squeaks that come from sleeping McKenzie each time the rocking chair changes directions. Back, *squeak*, forth, *squeak*, back, *squeak*, forth, *squeak*.  Rather recently, my eight year old McKenzie and I laughed at the cuteness of that little baby on the television screen... and then, rather suddenly, the milk I was drinking came perilously close to being sprayed across the room in a bout of laughter as the following conversation occurred through the speakers:

"Why don't you turn the camera around on to yourself?" Brian said in a joking tone.
"No!" I replied.
"Come on, Linds!"
"No way!" Then, obviously feeling the need to explain myself to any future viewers, I continued. "I just got out of the shower a few minutes ago and haven't blow-dried my hair yet." And the milk-spitting sentence, "I can't even find time to blow dry my hair anymore."

This was surprising and funny to me on a variety of levels.  First, that I used to actually blow dry my hair (I seriously just contemplated packing up my blow dryer last week with all the other things in the I-probably-won't-need-this-in-the-next-few-months-before-we-move category).  Second, that I cared about being seen if said activity had not been completed (if that were the case these days, no one would know I existed save for phone calls and email).  But mostly because I felt that I had no time to do something for myself when my husband was home, holding our only child, who was sleeping. Sweetheart, I thought in a rather condescending tone, why don't you go ahead and blow dry your hair when you're done with the camera.  

But, soon after my initial reaction, I started finding it easy to cut my 21 year old, brand new mom self a little slack.  And then a lot of slack.  To the point where I actually understood why she said she could not find time to blow dry her hair.  It wasn't about time in the sense of minutes and hours... not really, because she still had quite a bit of that to herself.  It was more about the concept of time.

Up to that point, my time had been strictly governed by myself.  Though I had external responsibilities that needed to happen at specific times (class, work, church, etc.), there were few (if any) surprises along the way.  I could sit down at the beginning of the week and, planning around those external responsibilities, decide what hour I would eat lunch that coming Friday... and what hour I would go to bed on Wednesday.  I was in complete control about whether or not I was late to class, or early to work.  I was in complete control about when I wanted to shower and I could decide to blow dry my hair before even leaving the bathroom if I wanted.  But a baby changed that.  All of the sudden things, such as time, were unpredictable.  I could plan to take a shower at a given time, sure, but if the baby was awake and fussy during that time then I would have to reschedule.  I could plan to blow dry my hair right after said shower, sure, but if Brian called me in to the living room to listen to the funny squeaking noises my baby was making, and if I found it cute enough to warrant pulling out the video camera, the blow drying would have to be rescheduled.  Eating lunch could not be set in stone, and even an intense spit-up or a major blow out on the way to church took being on time out of my hands. 

This was an adjustment for me and, in this way, having a dependent child altered my own independence.  When McKenzie was born, it felt like her independence was handed to me to take care of along with a responsibility to teach her about it over the years and, piece by piece, let her take it over.  But as long as her independence rests in my care, it mixes with mine... diluting my own independence, yes, but making me part of something bigger.

And so much better.

With the addition of each child, my independence has diluted even further, and the time I'm able to take for myself, time in the sense of minutes and hours, is shaved some more (to the point where, now that I'm a mother of four, I feel I really don't have any for myself (which is not entirely true because, here I am blogging (though, I am doing it one handed while nursing my sweet baby (yes, it's taking forever)))) and this change has always been an adjustment.  I wouldn't be truthful if I didn't admit that sometimes I want my own undiluted independence back... sometimes I'd like to eat breakfast first, or go to bed before everyone else is ready.  Sometimes I'd like to watch a show in the middle of the day, or type away in my journal or blog all through the dinner hours (and use two hands to do it).  But those desires have been weakening through the years and something is happening to my heart through it.  Joy is settling in.  A deep joy... a lasting joy... the kind of joy that is untouchable by outside sources.  I'm starting to feel that the deepest joy, for me (other than feeling loved and bonded to my husband), comes from this sort of self sacrifice for my kids.  From letting go of somewhat selfish desires and throwing my whole heart into caring for these beautiful babies of mine. 

From being All In.

This idea of being an All In Mother is not new to me... I've tried to be her for most of my mothering days, but I've been discouraged because she seemed so unattainable.  My efforts to reach her took so much energy and it felt like they yielded only varying degrees of failure... sprinkled with success.  The frustrating truth is that it has always been hard for me to feel fulfilled when the end of a day comes and I have nothing tangible to show for it.  The kids may be clean, fed and happy, but all I can usually see is the massive heap of dishes in the sink and the five dried Cheerios stuck to the counter from breakfast.  I've been the Mostly In Mother... and that has brought me incredible happiness; however, something is shifting.  The years of prayers regarding this subject are being answered and my attitude is finally changing from one of I'll help you quickly, but I need to get back to the laundry or the dishes or the sweeping and the mopping to one of Of course I'll help you or hold you or read to you or watch you patiently while you show me how you can put your shoes on your feet in nine minutes flat, and if I have any extra time I might see to those dishes...  I have always wished that this mind set had come naturally to me when I became a mother, but it did not.  I was expecting it to - I thought it was part of the whole 'mother's intuition' phrase that is actually a bit meaningless because nothing has been quite intuitive for me.  I've had to learn.  Learn it all.  From how to diaper a newborn (I forgot how strong their legs are and how easily their foot can end up in poop) to willingly sacrificing my own desires for them and to find real, lasting joy in that sacrifice.

I'm thinking that the reason that lasting joy was so hard for me to feel was because I was still subconsciously trying to hold on to 'my time'.  'My space.'  'My needs'.  It's true that when I'm focused on myself, I feel burdened by a sweet request for a glass of water and I don't have enough patience to stop what I'm doing to watch (for the hundredth time) the awesome way my boys can slide across the floor in their socks.  But, as I mentioned, something started shifting in me last week.

My Wednesday started early... 3:30am early... with my newborn baby.  With his tiny head cradled in my hands and his feet gently kicking my belly, he calmly looked up at me and played for a while.  His blinks were slow, but always opened back widely in the dim light.  He experimented with the tiny muscles under his eyebrows and lips and I noticed that he seemed to be bringing me into focus much better than he had been and that his eyes had mostly stopped crossing.  I talked to him for a long while and felt a little pang at how fast he was changing.  He stretched his neck out, tilted his head and his squishy lips contracted into a tiny O.  I smiled because I love those tiny O's.  I love you. so. much I breathed...

...and I felt eager and ready to give the rest of myself to that precious boy and my other beautiful children in a brand new way.

Later that morning I found it easy to crawl into the backseat of the van and talk my three year old through his tears about going into preschool.  His whole world has turned upside down with Timothy entering his home (just yesterday he asked me, "Mom, when is Timothy going to get gone?") and, though he's always loved preschool, he did not want to go.  My to-do list at home was 50 items long with things like Spray Paint Stools and Re-Caulk the Master Shower and Clean Out Fireplace.  I had been looking forward to those three hours that morning when Miles would be entertained at preschool... but, amazingly, I didn't worry about my to-do list for the entire twenty-five minutes I sat back there with him.  And when Timothy spit-up enough to warrant a bath when we got home, I didn't stress about that either while I gently sponged the warm water across his tiny body.  I didn't get one thing crossed off of my to-do list that morning while Miles was gone, but when he came home I still felt warm with fulfillment.

And the feeling has stuck!  Somehow.  The only explanation I can see is that the Lord must think it's finally time to answer that prayer.  For a whole week we've had so many wonderful experiences.  The things I used to feel burdened by are not burdensome anymore and my love for my children has, unbelievably, increased.

Anyway, I haven't finished processing these thoughts completely, and I do realize that there must be a balance in all things (uh, I do have to keep a house on the market) and that I need to take care of myself, too.  And I do believe that my kids will benefit from seeing me take time for myself occasionally... I've just been surprised by the level of happiness I've felt by saying yes as often as possible, by taking the time to get the band-aid on that tiny scratch now, or by sitting and talking with my three year old for 25 minutes of time that had been allotted to work.  By letting the dishes stay in the sink so I can give a bath to the baby and by holding and feeding that precious newborn through the still hours when everyone else sleeps.  By not being so concerned about the things on my list that are not getting done and by remembering that the things that are getting done are eternally important. By not wishing for my undiluted independence...

  ...but by embracing that vibrant, colorful mixture of Independence I have coming from myself, McKenzie, Carson, Miles and Timothy.  By loving that this mixture swirls around in my heart, guides my decisions, leads my schedule, and fills my minutes and hours and days and years with purpose and meaning.

And with so much joy and love.

The Magic Potion and Miracle Number Next

He doesn't like them.
MRI's.
He didn't know he didn't like them until last month when, after over an hour of being enclosed in the noisy, suffocating tube, he began to feel a little uncomfortable, which feeling quickly escalated into being a lot uncomfortable.
"Ummm... Are you guys almost done?" he called into the plastic just inches from his nose.  "I'm starting to feel really stuffy."  But they weren't done yet... they still had to do measurements of his aorta which would take another twenty minutes.  He tried to concentrate on the music he had playing through the headphones, but the heavy blanket covering him started feeling itchy.  And the sweat seeping from him felt damp.  And then his nose was itchy, too.
After a lifetime that lasted a few minutes he called again, "Ummm... How much longer?  I think I could be okay if we could just stop for a minute to take the blanket off."  But this time they were almost done and told him to hang on for just a couple more minutes. 
He wasted no time in sitting up and shaking the muscles in his arms and legs when they finally removed him from the tube.  And he had a new appreciation for all the patients he'd been frustrated by for declining MRI's themselves.  "I definitely get why some people refuse them now," he told me later that day.  "I can see how you could just kind of lose your mind and start panicking in there."

So he was anxious and quietly unhappy when the doctor suggested another MRI at his first follow-up appointment a month later.  "There's a little, something, down at the apex of your heart," she explained after reviewing the echo they had just done.  "I think it's probably nothing, probably just a trabecluation (a bit of spongy tissue that is not uncommon in small amounts she kindly explained to me), but," she continued, "I had the other doctors take a look and we're just not sure.  It could be a clot.  Again, we don't think it is," she added quickly, "but it could be."  Thinking that there might be a clot at the bottom of Brian's heart gave me pause.  If a clot is pumped through the body it could result in a stroke or worse.  She pulled his echo up on her computer screen and showed us the area she was talking about.  Yep.  I could definitely see a something where she pointed.  But I could see several somethings all over the screen and was grateful that she knew what somethings were normal and what somethings needed a closer look.  "So we'd like to get a better look with an MRI if that's okay with you," she concluded.
"Of course," I nodded.  And then, surprised to not hear an affirming response from Brian, I turned to look at him.  He didn't offer his consent and when his eyes caught mine I remembered how much he'd hated his last MRI by the end.  "Oh," I said with a smile, "he wasn't a big fan of the MRI they did in the hospital last month," I explained to the doctor.  At this, Brian exhaled a big breath and started bobbing his head up and down.  "Yeah," he admitted, "I was fine for a while... but then... I can definitely see why some patients have a hard time with them!"  And then, turning the situation into a joke he pumped his fist in front of his body and said, "But I can do it.  I can do this."
"Alright," the doctor smiled.  "You sure?"
"Yep.  Bring it," he replied.

And that was how he found himself dressed in a hospital gown, wrapped in a blanket, listening to music through headphones, and enclosed in a plastic, suffocating tube again last Thursday morning.  This one wasn't so bad, he admitted, and thinks it has a lot to do with the length of time being quite a bit shorter.  When he was pulled out, he was met by bright eyes and smiling faces from the doctors.  "Get dressed," they said, "and then we'll go over the results with you.  We have great news!"  And boy did they ever.

Brian's heart has, most unexpectedly, been very significantly healed.

Miraculously the full thickness scars have shrunk.  A lot!  Half or more of each scar has been replaced by contracting, working, pumping heart muscle.  The dead portion of the apex of his heart has shrunk, too; much of it being replaced by life.

One of the benefits of having a doctor husband is that we have access to all of his medical records and images from the comfort of our living room couch.  So, curious that night, we pulled up images from the first MRI and compared them to the second MRI to see if we could see the difference ourselves.  I thought the videos were absolutely fascinating and thought some of you would find them interesting, too. It's not difficult to see what I'm talking about, but it does help a bit to understand what you're looking at.  I have three different videos to post and think this image below really helps in understanding. The first video is of the apex of his heart. Using the image below, It's like they took a knife and cut right along that plane labeled PSAX Apex and then stared down into the bottom of the small piece they cut off.  The second video is shown from the PSAX Mitral plane, and the third video is shown from the PLAX plane.

We placed the images from the first MRI on the left of the screen and the images from the second MRI on the right to compare. The way the doctors angled the pictures on the first MRI make it look to our eye like Brian was lying on his left side.  The pictures of the second MRI look like he was lying flat on his back.  (We tried for a minute to rotate the first MRI pictures just for ease of viewing, but couldn't figure out how.) 


First the apex:

See that big old glob of movement?  That's the apex beating.  See how much stronger it is in the second window?!

And here's the second section, again so shocking in the difference!:

And the third. Pay special attention to the difference in apex contraction (bottom left in the first picture, bottom right in the second (the images are inverted in this one...)):

Is that not amazing?  After the initial MRI they told us that Brian's EF value was 47 (remember that means 47% of the blood in his left ventricle was pumped out to the rest of his body with each contraction... also remember that a normal value is anywhere between 55-75), and that they were not expecting an increase.  Final EF value after this MRI?

Sixty-five.
 
"I guess it pays to have a young heart!" the doctors said as they reviewed the results with Brian, their bright eyes revealing their surprise.  "Whatever magic potion you're taking, keep taking it!"

Magic potion, huh? I think to myself.  I'm sure the magic potion they're imagining of is a swirling mixture of medicines and youth.  The magic potion in my mind however, adds to theirs (or perhaps begins with) faith, prayer, fasting, priesthood blessings, and thankfully (thankfully) the will of the Lord, this time, lining up with my own.

He's still not allowed to go for a run or to lift anything heavier than our three year old for 5 more months (which happens to coincide nicely with getting our house on the market and moving our family down to Miami.  Oh wait... no... no, that does not coincide nicely...), but we are happy to follow the restrictions and have been blessed with good friends who have helped rearrange and remove furniture for staging our house and who will come sometime next week to pull all the baby stuff down from the attic for us.  And then hopefully my own body will get back to normal and I'll be able to do most of the lifting and hauling.

But, regardless of what the next six months bring, we are so humbled by this new miracle.  A miracle of healing.  Which is, to me, the greatest and most tender miracle of all.

The Nightmarish Miracles Before Christmas - Miracles

This has been a hard post to write for some reason.  I sat down and thought I would be able to whip it out in an hour, and instead it's taken me days and days.  I keep getting stuck in research, or distracted by too many details, or unsure of how to explain myself.  Up to this point, journal-type entries have worked well in telling this story because, really, the facts are the facts... I haven't felt pressured to proof-read or re-work paragraphs here and there to make it more meaningful to a myriad of readers.  Instead, I just typed and told a story that had already happened.  But... this is different.  Outlining the many small and large miracles that in some way affected us that weekend feels a little more abstract.  A little more up for interpretation.  If this were a journal entry, I would simply list the miracles by bullet-points and give short descriptions for each. I would know that each time I read it I would remember the significance because I know the details of my life... but to write a blog post of these exact same miracles has been difficult.  All the sudden I'm aware of my readers and I feel the need to explain myself more than I would in a journal only meant for me. When I see the bullet pointed list in front of my eyes and read it through the eyes of others, it just looks like a compiled list of coincidences.  And so I've been trying to pour my heart into it - to somehow recreate the feelings behind the words.  To describe the tender place in my heart that warms when I think of these and, by so doing, convinces me of the divine hand that has guided these circumstances.  Turning them from coincidences into miracles. 

But, it's not working.

It's been days and I have only written through two bullet points... and when I re-read them, I found them quite boring.  This bothers me because, to me, they are the very opposite of boring.  They are humbling and strengthening.  They are tender and they prove to me that I am being cared for by God.  To explain these in a blog post, I want them to be inspiring... but I'm realizing I'm still quite in the middle of all of this and cannot pull back far enough to explain myself clearly.  And, the thought of trying to explain each miracle tires me. So, I deleted everything; and the blank screen in front of me was even more depressing than not being able to explain myself clearly in the first place. 

I can't let this screen stay blank... I feel the story is too incomplete without mention of these miracles (I even alluded to them in the title of this series of posts with the word Miracles).  They are as much a part of the story as the heart attack itself, and so I must post them.  But please forgive me for needing to treat this more like a journal entry than a blog... I will list these miracles - the big ones right along side of the tiny ones - with bullet points and needed descriptions and if they look like coincidences, well, then that's okay.  Please know, however, that they are so much more to me. If I write this story again someday (for real) I will most likely weave these points into the body of the story, letting the miracles shine through the heartache like a flashlight cuts through darkness.  Hopefully in that day each of these little miracles will be explained and those that read about them will know just how meaningful they are to me.  But that day is not today.  And, truthfully, that day might not come for several years.  So again, for now, please know that these are precious to me.

Each word.

Each miracle.

---------------------------------------------

*We stayed at Duke for an extra, optional, year.
 Two years ago, when it became clear that Brian had a very good chance of being asked to stay on as the chief resident for an extra year, my initial response was no way.  Why would we want to extend an already never-ending school/training program for an extra year?  I even went so far as to make a tangible list of all the reasons why we should not be considered, and why I would not want for Brian to do it.  But then, one day, I had a positive thought about it - and Brian had a positive thought about it on the same day.  We started thinking about it a bit more seriously and eventually felt that the Lord had changed our hearts around and we accepted the invitation to stay.  Otherwise, we would have be in a new city and state this year... just six months into it, as Brian worked toward completing his fellowship year.  There is no way to know whether or not this decision to stay here saved Brian's life, but it certainly made the situation more comfortable for several reasons.

Familiarity reasons: we know this city like the back of our hands.  Having lived here for nine years, it was no trouble at all to speed to the emergency room... I had been to that emergency room a few times before (and that hospital countless times before) and knew the fastest route, where to park, how to check in, all without a second thought.

Brian's support reason: many of the doctors and nurses recognized Brian, and loved him, so we felt his care became personal to them.  

My emotional state reason: how much more comfortable for me to have this happen in a place where I have planted roots and have a strong support system.  If we were in a new city it could have been much harder to find help where I needed it if only for the reason that all of my friendships would be brand, brand new.

Financial reasons: Brian has been able to make enough extra money this year that the financial side of this is not as stressful as it would have been had we gone straight to fellowship (where his salary will be cut substantially). 

Brian's health care reasons:  Not many hospitals, I'm realizing, have twenty four hour trauma centers.  How lucky we are that we are so close to Duke, where they have a cath lab close to ready at all times during the day and night.  If we were living somewhere with a smaller hospital, he would have had to be life-flighted somewhere else. 

Future reasons:  If we had been halfway through our fellowship year, Brian would be in the process of applying and interviewing for jobs right now.  How lucky that we have some time now to think about this and make certain that whatever job Brian applies for is close to a major hospital.  How nice that we know about this heart condition before we're settled down so we can choose to settle in a place close enough to a twenty four hour trauma center.

*The year is 2012 (2013, whatever)
I can't stop thinking about that helpless feeling I felt as I backed into the corner of the emergency department room while the doctors and nurses buzzed all around Brian and, as I said before, worked so fast barking orders, stripping his clothes off, sticking IV needles in both arms, giving pills, etc...  I'm sure my eyes were huge and at one point I remember slightly shaking my head from side to side thinking, "I am so grateful for all of those machines, and all those medicines, and all those brains in those heads that know what to do..."

As we've researched, that gratitude has only intensified.  In 1987 (when my own father was Brian's age with three small children at home), there were only 85 cases reported worldwide of spontaneous coronary artery dissection... and 82% of those patients did not survive. Nine years later, in 1996, Heart Journal came out with an article titled Spontaneous coronary artery dissection: a neglected cause of acute myocardial ischaemia and sudden death.  And... can you believe this quote I copied from it?
 

This was1996... I was already in high school... sudden death the usual mode of presentation?  Life saving treatment far from being achieved?  Wow.

*Brian was home when this happened.
It's been interview season out here.  The past month has found Brian in Florida, Minnesota, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and California... and (the scariest realization) at 30,000 feet in the air at any point between.  He's been by himself... sleeping in hotel rooms, driving in rental cars...

And, now he's done.  

No more traveling.  Just a clear, normal schedule that keeps him home and around home while he recovers.  Even putting the traveling aside, there could have been several places even around here that would have been so much less convenient.  We were sitting on a concrete slab in the museum last week watching the kids play.  We were a 15 minute walk away from the main building and I wondered, what would I do if Brian started having another severe heart attack right here?  He wouldn't be able to walk himself back to the main building if the attack was the same - nor should he. 
And... what if he had been driving?  Or home alone with the kids?  Still processing those answers...

*Clear, clear schedules.
 

This is a big one.  It's like the Lord took a look at my calendar, pointed to the square labeled 22nd and said, "This looks like it will work best."  I was shocked to open this calendar up last week and see, visually, how perfect the timing was in all of this.  Several sub-miracles fall under this category, and there are most likely more tiny miracles that I haven't even recognized yet.

Cleared schedule miracle one: The Lord started early in clearing our way for this.  One of the biggest reliefs for me was that, as the ward choir director, I didn't have to figure out what to do about the ward Christmas program that I had originally scheduled for the 23rd.  Several choir members were going to be out of town on the 23rd, and after finding that out in early November, I moved the program up one week so they could all participate.  I was sad about this... I thought the 23rd would be much better... most of the stresses of the month would be over by then, allowing people to really be able to sit back and enjoy the program, plus it would give me as much time as possible to get the choir ready for all of our numbers.  But, it was more important to me to have as many choir members as possible, so we worked harder and held the program a week early.  I can't even tell you how many hours were put into preparing this program - what would I have done?  Who could I have even asked to take my place with only a few hours notice?  How would I communicate everything about the program that only I knew?  Would I have just had to leave Brian to go run the program? Oh the stress that would have created for me...

Cleared schedule miracle two: Brian already had the entire next week off of work.  Of course, he would have been able to get out of work anyway, but what a blessing it was to not have to worry about who would be covering here and there and everywhere in between.  Getting out of work is not easy for Brian... as the chief resident, he is currently being employed by three different sources and has a myriad of responsibilities that only he takes care of.  To miss work for even a day with little notice would be to inconvenience many people.

Cleared schedule miracle three:  As I went to sleep the Thursday night before, I realized I still had several items left to get before Christmas.  All of my kids are already out of school, so I can't go tomorrow. I thought.  We have a big Christmas Eve Eve party the next day... so I'll be preparing for that all day Saturday... I don't shop on Sunday... so that leaves only Monday.  I knew Brian would be off of work that day, so I planned for him to take care of the kids while I braved the Christmas Eve crowds to get the last of the shopping done.  But Friday morning came and I felt a fire I've not felt since the beginning of this pregnancy.  I even called a few people to see if they could watch all three of my kids so I could go shopping.  Seriously, unheard of for me.  Thankfully, a neighbor was happy to take them, and I went out Friday morning, just 30 hours before the heart attack, and finished it all.  Otherwise, there may have been no stockings this year.

Cleared schedule miracle four:  This point actually comes from Becky... she's the friend that took care of my kids for most of the time, and who came and sat with me at the hospital for hours on Saturday night.  She mentioned to me that she had spontaneously changed around her schedule at the last minute to get all of her Christmas wrapping done on Saturday morning.  Making Christmas cookies was on her schedule, but she decided early Saturday that she would rather wrap presents.  So, when crisis hit less than 12 hours later, Christmas was finished and ready for her own family and she was able to focus on mine.  I found this quite humbling... I already have a firm testimony that the Lord loves each of his children, so the fact that he wanted Becky to be as comfortable as possible didn't surprise me... but it was humbling when I realized that his care for Becky also showed another color of his love for me.  That He cared about me enough to help clear the path of a friend so she could get to me. 



*We had our Christmas Eve Eve party that night.

We kept the tradition:  Really, one of the greatest miracles was that we decided to even have the Christmas Eve Eve party this year.  Christmastime was stressful for me this year and we had already cut many things to make it less overwhelming (sorry to all the friends and neighbors who did not get neighbor gifts from us this year... don't feel bad... no one did).  Brian was pressuring me all month to cut the party, but that tradition was important to me (handed down from dear, dear friends) so it stayed.  Plus, because Christmas Eve Eve was actually a Sunday this year, we had moved it up by one day to hold it on the Saturday.  Thank goodness we held it, and thank goodness we held it a day early.

A house full of people we loved when it happened:  When I realized something was very wrong, I had 5 priesthood holders chatting in my living room, 4 of them medical doctors themselves.  Brian received a blessing, first thing, and then I could rely on several educated opinions on what to do next.  Another great thing about having so many people in my house is that they all saw the red flag as it was raised.  I had instant (instant) help from several sources and there was no lag time while word spread.  As alone as I felt, I was surrounded by care from the moment it happened. How much more alone would I have felt if I had been alone?  And, of course, one of the greatest time-savers of the night was that I could walk straight out my door and know that my kids would be taken care of. 

Specific people blessing:  The specific people who were there were another tender blessing.  I can think of no one better to have by my side in a crisis than Becky.  She's one of those people who actually delights in being the one to roll up her sleeves and jump in after a friend.  She and Doug planned and organized and cleaned and answered calls.  They dropped their plans without a second thought to help.  They visited several times in the hospital, took care of my kids, made Christmas cookies with them (when I know Becky actually hates being surrounded by kids in the kitchen), had picnics, snuggled down with McKenzie at the end of the day when they sensed McKenzie needed a little extra love...  Yes, the Larsons are crisis fixers.  And Kim is so tender-hearted... thinking through the problem clearly enough to know that I might need a few things at the hospital that night.  After Brian and I sped out of the driveway, she took McKenzie aside and said, "Let's pack up a few things for your Mom - where are her favorite pajamas?"  She and McKenzie together packed a little bag of essentials that was so entirely perfect.  And then she came back to sleep in my home that night with my children.  And the Hansens... Mark ended up being indispensable to me that night, and Aimee took her three kids home by herself and let Mark go for the entire night.  How much more of a wreck might I have been without Mark using his Duke badge to get the inside scoop?  The Tessems and Paxtons called through the night and texted their love and concern to us.  Yes, the people were perfect...

*Once we left the house, Brian was seamlessly on his way to the cath lab.
No large animals stalking the sides of the road.  We live close to a state park and, after dark, I see deer munching along the sides of the roads probably 60% of the time.  No deer that night.

No traffic:  8:00pm on the last Saturday before Christmas?  I find this miraculous and, since most of the way is a double-yellowed two lane road with heavy construction happening, no traffic was a serious blessing.

My tires only stopped once the entire route to the hospital.  This is amazing to me.  I only stopped at one of eleven stoplights (although, I did run one), and the only stop sign was clear enough on all sides for me to ignore.

Brian stayed conscious. The doctors were not pleased that I had rushed Brian to the hospital myself.  They suggested I should have called an ambulance.  Hindsight is 20/20 of course, and everything turned out for the best (of course, I believe that if the right path would have been to call an ambulance I would have been guided in that direction, so there are no regrets on my part), but they mentioned that because it was such a severe heart attack the risk of him going into cardiac arrest was high.  An ambulance would have had all the equipment necessary to handle a situation like that.  If there's a next time, I think I will call an ambulance... 

Emergency department was empty:  A week later, we were eating at Chick-Fil-A and I overheard the lady behind me say that her mother was in the Emergency Department and had been waiting for 18 hours.  She also said that one lady had been sitting there for 24.  Now, I'm sure Brian would have been triaged at a high level had there been a full emergency department, so I doubt he would have had to wait long regardless, but we didn't even wait long enough for me to pull out my phone.

Brian loved the attending staffed that night.  Brian said there are quick and efficient emergency department doctors at Duke (and everywhere, I'm sure), and then less efficient doctors who seem to make everything take a lot longer than it should.  Brian said it relaxed him a ton when he saw Dr. Broder come into the room.  He knew he'd be well taken care of from the start.

*The surgeons hands were gentle
After finding out how difficult this surgery was to do, we were incredibly grateful for the surgeon who saved Brian's life.  At Duke, a resident or a fellow (doctors in training) usually performs the surgeries with an attending doctor watching over their shoulder ready to jump in if there are complications.  Mark said, however, that the fellow standing in with the doctor during Brian's surgery never touched the instruments.  He said that the attending did the whole thing up until the very end when he let the fellow insert the balloon pump.  Thank goodness for his hands.

*They let me stay in the ICU
I count this in the miracles... because I think it would have been much, much harder for me to stay out in the waiting room all night.  Technically, no visitors are allowed in the ICU after hours, but Brian's nurse was kind, and no one else seemed to mind, either.  They even let me use their staff bathroom. Whether it was in the name of the holidays, or because we were such a rare case doesn't matter to me.  I'm just thankful I got to stay.

*McKenzie handled this like an 8-year-old.

 
Seems strange to say, I know.  But she so often understands and handles things in a way well beyond her years, and I was very comforted to realize that she seemed to be understanding this situation appropriately.  Her biggest concern was that Daddy would not be home for Christmas... not that Daddy wouldn't come home at all.  And, the first night we were gone after she had been having trouble getting to sleep for hours and hours, Kim went in to her and gently asked her what she was thinking about and why it was hard for her to fall asleep.  Kim thought McKenzie was probably concerned for her Daddy and was struggling with his rush out the door.  Instead, McKenzie said, "I just can't stop thinking about Christmas!  I don't know what I'm going to get!"

Relief.  You just keep thinking about Christmas, my dear...

*Both of our families came for the holidays this year
We've only had family visit once for Thanksgiving and once for Christmas in the nine years we've lived here,  so it was an unusual and extremely happy surprise when both of our families called in the same week to ask if they could come this year - one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas.  I felt so, so lucky!  And, now, I think it was probably more than just luck. 

My family came for Thanksgiving and painted the entire inside of our house to help get it ready to put on the market.  How wonderful to have that all done now that things have gotten harder.

And Brian's family came for Christmas and played a major part in helping my kids and me through this crisis.


*The phone miracles
Perhaps the smallest of the miracles, and perhaps not, centered around cell phones.  There were three miracles that happened in this category.

My phone:  In response to my very first text (Brian is having a heart attack.  Please pray.  I'll call soon.), my sister Amber replied,  Love you.  If someone is coming to the hospital, have them bring your phone charger.  Hadn't even crossed my mind and, to be honest, I didn't think it was quite as important as other things that were going on at that point... My phone holds a charge well and a full battery generally lasts a week. But, in response to her text, I had Becky bring my phone charger.  And, Amber was right.  It turned out to be essential to me as I drained a full battery twice throughout that first night.

Becky's phone: As Becky got into her van to come to the Christmas party that night, she realized her phone was almost completely dead.  Not a problem, really... her whole family was with her... she'd just be at my house for a few hours... she could just plug it in when she got home.  But an idea struck her before she pulled away from her home and she found herself running back into her house, grabbing her charger, and plugging her phone into the wall by my microwave when she walked into my house that night.  Because of this, she had a full battery (which she definitely needed and used) by the time I asked her to come to the hospital.  Bless her for being my secretary that night.  She fielded calls I would have rather not answered, and contacted people she felt needed to know.  Of course I was mostly grateful for her, but I was grateful for her phone that night, too.

Mark's phone: Mark gave me his cell phone as I sped out of my driveway to take Brian to the hospital.  And, thankfully, as almost an afterthought, he called after my rolling car, "Lindsay!  The password is thisseriesofnumbers!" Okay.  I never remember things like that.  Like, ever.  And when I'm pregnant I'd be lucky to remember that I even had his phone in my pocket in the first place.  I know this well about myself and, sure enough, as I pulled his phone out to place that first call in the hospital, I panicked because I couldn't remember the first thing about that seriesofnumbers.  But a miracle occurred as the lock screen on his phone flashed in front of my eyes: my thumbs took over.  They typed that code in before my brain even realized what I'd done.  I thought about this about an hour after it happened.  And, try as I might, I could not remember even one number.

*People, people, people
I can't even begin to list each little blessing that came from friends and family.   So, I won't try.  But how blessed we were to have so many people praying for and caring for us.  People jumped in to help without even asking.  My needs were filled before I even knew they existed sometimes.  Most of those things have already been talked about in previous posts, but there are some that have not - each one of them blessed us, and I do not doubt that many of them came as a direct response to inspiration.

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So, there you have it.  There are more than 25 miracles listed in the words above.  More than 25 things that have caused Brian or I to say, "You know, it's a good thing that ________."  And, I know it's true that this list would be entirely different had Brian not survived the attack.  But, I do not doubt that the list would still exist. 


I love God.  How blessed I am that my parents taught me to look for him.  How blessed I am to belong to a church that teaches me that my relationship with God can be and should be very personal.  That I can work to communicate with him myself and, by so doing, feel his love for me and not just hear that it exists. 

I've learned in my life that bad things happen to good people. But, I've also learned that when bad things happen, good things are happening, too.  The trick is in finding those good things and holding on to them, because bad things have a way of demanding the attention.  It's hard to see that your phone is charged when your husband is fighting for his life.  It's hard to remember that your family came a month before and painted your walls when you're in the middle of waiting to find out whether you have to tell your kids.... ....
It's hard to appreciate the warm hug.  It's hard to recognize the small baggie of chocolates and the brand new cozy socks as signs of love.

But the thing that strikes me the most about God's love in all this is that, regardless of whether I recognize them or not, the good things still happen.  They still bless my life.  I've just found that they bless me more when I recognize them. And so I try.

Because in the middle of bad things, it's the blessings - the miracles - that pull me through.