Brie Gowen

Savor the Essence of Life

If These Walls Could Talk

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I heard weeping. It was soft at first, as if trying to be kept at bay, but it suddenly grew in volume and intensity. It wasn’t the tears of a simple disappointment, like ruining your favorite pair of jeans with a bleach incident. No. It was guttural. It was the sound of pent-up grief spilling over.

It wasn’t an uncommon sound. Not in the ICU. Not for an ICU nurse of twenty years. Yet, despite the familiarity for myself, I still felt my eyes sting. Her cries. Oh my goodness, the pain underneath each whimper; it made my own heart break.

I knew what was transpiring. Even though I currently sat at my patient’s bedside, as I had for days, the poor woman too sick to be left without watchful eyes for more than a few minutes, I had been next door. One room over, but hundreds of miles apart in terms of prognosis. My lady was improving, slowly, but as I always say, slow and steady wins the race. Not so next door.

Fifteen minutes prior I had heard someone call out, “you got some atropine in there?”

I walked one ICU room over, perusing the bedside monitor as I entered. It was serious. Nothing on the screen was compatible with life. I began increasing the IV medications dripping into the patient’s veins, hoping to stave off the impending doom. All in vain, the EKG line went flat. The nurse at the bedside began compressing his sternum to keep the blood flowing, and I ripped open the crash cart to draw open the medications to try and bring him back to us.

In a flash the room filled with warriors, wearing scrubs and flying into action. One round, two rounds, three rounds.

“No pulse. Asystole. Resume compressions.”

With an entire room full of helpers, I had excused myself from the bedside. They had enough hands. Some nurses thrive on the adrenaline of a code blue, but I had seen so many through the years, far too many to count, that I was fine to sit this one out and allow the other professionals to drive.

They got him back, and I’d like to say it stayed that way, but it did not. His heart stopped again. The family stood in a huddle outside the room, holding each other. One young woman was in the floor, her grief too heavy for her legs to hold, and that was the source of the painful wails. A chaplain brought a chair. Someone else grabbed some tissues and water. These were the things we could do. We couldn’t save the loved one in the bed, anymore than we could take away the pain that released itself in heart-wrenching tears.

When I first heard the crying in the hall, after nearly weeping empathetically myself, it occurred to me how often these halls held the tears of grieving family. They cradled the disappointed spouse after hearing bad news. They steadied the angry son who couldn’t believe there was nothing more that could be done. Many times, thank God, these halls even expanded with the joyful laughter of miraculous recovery. If only these walls could talk!

They’d be shouting emergent orders from a physician, “get the RSI kit now!”

Or the muttering of an exhausted nurse, on the fourth day of a string of twelve hour shifts, “just an hour to go.”

There would definitely be a lot of questions.

“How did this happen?”

What do we do now?

What would momma have wanted?

And plenty of expressions of surprise, coupled with confusion and disbelief.

“But he was doing better. He just asked about the dog.”

“She’s only 28 years old! Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their children!”

“I never knew he was so depressed!”

There would be expressions of hope.

“Dad is a fighter. He’s gonna make it.”

And expressions of love through surrender.

“Mom wouldn’t want to live like this.”

There is so much these halls could say, if only they could utter words, but they’ve kept the secrets whispered within their walls under tight lip. I sometimes wonder, on days like today, if the walls stay silent simply because they don’t have words. Some of the deepest pain of loss is spoken through silent tears, agonizing cries, and even resigned sighs from the warriors who lost the last battle. Maybe the walls don’t talk because even mere words would be too difficult to express the emotions that course through its halls. Perhaps silence, a listening ear, and a space to lean on is the best these walls can do.

I Cried on the Way Home Today

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I cried on the way home today. I wasn’t expecting that.

The past few days I cared for a patient with a chronic condition. Medicine had done all it could do, and today she came to terms with that. She decided to withdraw aggressive care and seek comforting measures in the little time she had left. A difficult, yet brave and compassionate decision.

Family came to the bedside from all over, as far as California. I’ve never seen so many people in one ICU room. I could barely move inside the room, and at one point I came in to find family members criss-cross applesauce along the floor. No critical care unit could muster that many chairs, but I had to at least bring in an armload of hospital blankets they could use as cushions. The rules went out the window as newborn grandchildren arrived at the bedside to meet grandma for the first and last time, and I for one was glad. It was the most beautiful farewell I’ve witnessed in a hospital setting. Stories were reminisced, and at one point my patient said, “thank you for this. It’s like a party!”

I replied, “it is. It’s a celebration of your life.”

Daughters were there, even up until I left, holding the wrinkled hand of their sleeping mom. I couldn’t help but think of my own mother. I didn’t get to say goodbye like these women, but I did get more time. Momma should have died in the car wreck, but she soldiered on ten more years. In that decade we had a lot of fun and made some wonderful memories that I still cherish now. I didn’t cry at the bedside when that occurred to me.

I did cry on my drive home. I was thanking God for a good day. While sad, it was also beautiful, and I felt honored to have shared in the celebration of a life well-lived with a legacy of amazing family left in its wake. Yet my thoughts circled to her. Momma.

“I miss you so much,” I prayed, hoping somehow she could hear me.

I don’t guess that ever goes away. This will be the fourteenth year since her passing.

I felt that burning knot of emotion in my throat, that one I hate, yet yearn to go ahead and come out already; grief spilled to quiet the ache. At that moment I heard the song coming from my playlist.

Highs and lows, Lord, your mercy is an even flow. Should I rise or should I fall? You are faithful through it all. You’re too good to let me go.

He’s too good to let me go. He holds me always, through my grief, and through my happy memories. Losing someone you love is never easy. You never stop missing them. The ache of their empty space descends upon you when you least expect it. In the low of sentimental sorrow, and in the high of rapturous remembrance. Today I was a witness of both degrees of emotion before me, and I held in my heart the same.

When a Haircut Is a Kick in the Sack

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I stood in the kitchen with my husband putting groceries away. My oldest child and I had just arrived home from a trip to town for some food essentials, plus a trip to the Barber Shop.

“I wasn’t prepared for that,” he whispered, while pointing into the other room. “It was like a kick in the sack.”

He looked down, at a loss for words, but none were needed for me. I knew exactly how he felt. I had felt the same emotions watching the first haircut nine months ago, and again today, as the barber took the hair down to the scalp, the shortest it had ever been. It was grief, plain and simple, yet not simple enough for others to understand what I mean.

I see the news stories, read the articles, gape at the vitriol on social media. I can’t say I understand the current political environment, but I do see it. And it frightens me. The commentary often centers on the parents of a transgender teen. Like, how dare they abuse their child in that way?! I can say this wasn’t my idea, nor my husband’s. It wasn’t society, the leftist’s agenda, or even TikTok to blame. It just happened. My beautiful, confident daughter started puberty and hated what her body was becoming. She didn’t know why. But she did know that death seemed better than existing in a body that she didn’t feel was her own. Fast-forward through months of therapy following suicidal ideation and self-harm, and you come to this place where you shop for clothes in the boy’s section for the first time. Something so simple, a request granted that brings that first smile in six months or more. Strange.

I guess people only see the end result, not the agony that brought you there. They see the proud, yet hesitant announcement, but don’t see the tears shed behind closed doors.

I love being a girl mom. My husband is amazing at being outnumbered, so gentle, loving, and strong. I love the pink, frilly dresses, and learning how to french braid all that long, blond hair. I can remember three Christmases ago begging my oldest to please wear the matching dresses I had picked out for photos, “for your mom, please.” Now, no dresses remain in the closet for him. Him. The child I now call son.

Fathers dream of walking their daughter down the aisle. Mothers dream of their daughter having children, so they might share that bond of parenthood that childbirth brings. My husband and I are grieving those things. We’re close to the year mark of when Chloe asked to be called Noah, but for us, it’s still like it’s yesterday that we laughed at little feet clopping around in pink, plastic heels. We no longer say the non-preferred name or pronoun, but we do still have ton of brick, kick to the sack moments. Those moments where, to no decision of our own, we have packed away the dreams for our daughter, replacing them with hopes for our son. It’s a surreal feeling, a loss of sorts. We chose to lose our daughter in gender, rather than to lose her all together physically. We cried for our daughter who wanted to die, and now we laugh with our son who made the brave decision to live.

To live in a world that hates him! I think that’s what worries us the most. I shared with him last night the recent stories and posts I had seen about Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light backlash.

I said, “I hesitated telling you because I want to protect you from a cruel world that hates you, but I also knew that for your awareness and safety, we have to talk about these things. You have to be careful. There are people out there who will hurt you.”

And I didn’t just mean emotionally.

What parent allows their child to make a decision that could get them killed?

What child makes a monumental choice to become the most hated, most judged, most incorrectly labeled (eg, pedophile) people group of all times?!

We got hens recently. My husband was going to pick one up, and in her scurrying, frantic fear, that ole hen put her head through the fence hole and tried to break her own neck! That’s what I think of when I consider the past year (more than) of our life. Our child was frantic, confused, and fearful. Our baby would have rather died than live an identity that didn’t feel authentic to him. My husband had to gently calm that chicken, and we had to gently love our firstborn, whether he went by his birth name or not, whether he ever wore a dress again, whether he got haircuts at the barber that were severely masculine. That didn’t mean they weren’t still a kick in the sack.

I reckon folks forget that part. They’re so focused on blaming the parents for bad parenting, that they neglect the emotional toll that led to this place. They’re so busy making something a battle to fight, where one doesn’t exist, that they miss the war raging in the minds of suicidal, transgender kids. They forget that whether a boy wears a dress, or a girl gets a shaved head, that inside them that beautiful soul is the same. That is one thing that keeps us steady in the sea of the uncertainty and worry that is being a parent of a transgender child.

There are questions you ask yourself. Like, will they one day decide to be the assigned gender at birth again? But for now, the answer doesn’t matter. What matters is how we love them now. We love them through those inner thoughts of “my daughter is gone,” and we love them through all the kicks in the sack. I love him as I look at old photos, seeing a daughter that used to be. I love him because even though my daughter is gone, my son is here. He is happy, healthy, and smiling. For now, that is enough.

The Scars That Don’t Fade

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Three years ago. Wow. Looking at the black and white photo of my face, I feel… empty. Sometimes emotions are like that. It’s not a void of emotions, but rather an onslaught. Too many to comb through and pick just one.

This week the hospital I’m at put out a policy stating we didn’t have to wear masks anymore. After three years of wearing them constantly! After a shift without one, I felt so strange. Every time I rose from my computer I felt naked. I felt as if I was doing something wrong. I felt afraid, even. Like, shouldn’t I wear it anyway?! I saw other nurses with their masks still on the full, twelve hours. My comrades who remembered.

I cannot explain the emotions to you if you weren’t there, but I’ll try. It’s trauma in its purest form. I told my therapist that it reminded me of the pain I had seeing armless, legless, faceless Marines come into my care as a Navy Corpsman. It wasn’t war three years ago, like it had been in Iraq, but in a way it was. It felt that way. So many of my friends, family, and acquaintances couldn’t wait for masks to be a memory, but for the beside, ICU nurses, they were more than paper. They were more than a mandate. They were life. And that sounds silly saying it out loud, yet we clung to what we hoped would protect us.

In the beginning of the pandemic, we saw far too many people die. At the beginning, it seemed like they all died. My ICU at the time kept track of the deaths, and in nine months I saw 263 slip away. It did not matter what we did to try and make them stay.

263 doesn’t seem like a lot of people if you’re looking at national averages or through a political lens, but to those who wore respirators, goggles, gowns, and gloves, it’s too many. Each patient had a name, they were loved, and they were missed. They weren’t allowed to stay on an earth where people would become angry at a medical community trying to help. If they were, would they have stood up for men and women like me who only wanted the lucky folks outside of the trenches to believe us when we said it was bad?! I think so.

I think the immigrant, with frightened eyes, rapid breathing, and no understanding of the English language would have managed, to translate, “they saved me!” But he can’t, because we didn’t. He was my first, personal death to Covid-19.

So many would follow. The guy who through struggling gasps would tell his wife via phone, “I’ll talk to you soon,” had been the end of me. I had made eye contact with a fellow nurse, through perspiration and plastic shielding, eye contact that agreed sadly on a mental level, “no, sir, you won’t.” And he didn’t. I couldn’t take it as personal anymore after that. I just went on auto. We all did. Doing all the things, that meant nothing to combat that virus, and meant even less to communities who said we were stretching and fabricating the numbers.

It hurts too much to say much more. By the time other strains were rapidly killing middle-aged people like myself, I had completed insulated myself from a world that rolled its eyes at me. Yet, I still tried to help. I can remember trying to convince the man, three years my junior, why he needed to prone to get his oxygen levels up, while he groaned in broken, struggling exhalations that Covid wasn’t real.

I’m glad things are better now (in terms of virology), and we can finally have the option to drop the masks that protected us. But in someways, some things are worse. The pandemic didn’t just kill fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, and friends; it killed the community of togetherness that had helped so much in my previous, frontline battles after 9/11. Where did those people go? The ones who said, together we are better, and we can stand against this. It was replaced by factions. Factions made up of those who three years later are hesitant to drop a mask because of the things they saw, and those who never would wear them anyway, because they didn’t see the things I can’t forget.

The scars on my nose and cheeks faded, but the other wounds, they’re incredibly harder to dull away.

What Do I Have to Be Thankful For?!

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I baste the bird, liquid butter with bits of garlic poured out over the bulging breasts of our Thanksgiving turkey. My eyes burn as I go about the task, gritty from lack of sleep after sitting in the psych hold of the local ER all night, but more so still on fire after so many torrents of tears spent. Rivers of tears over driving to the hospital with my child, but leaving without them.

Thanksgiving, a time to reflect on the gifts we have been given. Opting to celebrate the holiday early since I’d spend the actual day at work, I had planned to put the turkey in the oven at 2am. But it turns out that at 2am I was tossing and turning in a rigid recliner pulled alongside my son’s stretcher, wrapping a blanket tighter around my ears to cushion the sound of nurses’ laughter or the cursing screams from the head-banging, combative neighbor next door.

How many times have I cried to the Lord, “am I doing the right thing? Give me wisdom!”

I slide the buttery bird back in its heated cave. We have to eat, right?! The planned dinner, with side dishes still sitting at the ready in the refrigerator, prepped the preceding night, before I knew what lay ahead. What were we actually celebrating, anyway?!

In the lone room of the child and adolescent inpatient wing, sitting in an abnormally large, yet childlike chair, I wept into my wrinkled sweatshirt while they searched my baby in another room for hidden objects that could cause self harm. I cried out to my inner thoughts, “please tell me I’m doing the right thing!”

Today could have started very differently, it occurred then to me. I wasn’t simply thinking about an appetizing spread ready on the dining room table by noon. I was thinking of trying to wake my son to eat, but instead of being greeted by his sleepy grumbles, being confronted with his cold, blue flesh. That is how today could have started.

Instead… instead, the Holy Spirit had prompted him to come to me.

“I have to tell you something,” he said, after sitting criss-cross, apple sauce on the bathroom floor, “but I’m afraid it will make you sad.”

“You can tell me anything!”

Thankfully, he did.

What a week it’s been. Last week brought frightening messages while I worked, of feeling disconnected and unreal, a stranger in another’s body. Walking out in the cold rain just to feel something, anything.

Two nights ago brought self-harm, six horizontal cuts on his left, inner calf, driven to “scratch a nagging itch” that refused to abate until the damage was done.

I’ve always considered us blessed that Noah feels so comfortable coming to us about everything, but even I was surprised by the extremely detailed plan of suicide he had concocted, and shared with me in the bright lights of our bathroom last night. He had planned on waiting until we were all asleep, ensuring we would be none the wiser until finding his body this morning.

I pull the browning bird out at determined intervals, coating its skin with flavorful moisture. What do I have to be thankful for?! As I prepare a meal of Thanksgiving, sans my firstborn present. He is not here, but he will be.

He is not at the table today, but he will be for all the tomorrows. My baby is alive, and after facing the plan to end Thanksgivings forever, and Christmases to boot, he decided to stay. To reach out for a lifeline, to feel better, to cling to that thread of hope that must still be there somewhere. I have a lot to be thankful for.

It didn’t feel that way as I left him at the hospital. He cried, “don’t leave me,” and I probably would not have had the staff not ushered me away. Gosh, y’all, this is hard. It’s hard to spend a year trying to pull your baby out of darkness, and finally realizing you cannot do it alone. It’s hard trying to do your best, to make the right decisions, to follow the advice of the many mental healthcare professionals invested in your child’s future, yet still feeling like a piece of your innermost being is lost in a dark forest of sadness and dismay. Can I leave breadcrumbs to bring him back? Is there a way back to the happy child I remember? Can I feel peace amidst so much turmoil? Maybe that’s the real breadcrumbs in the stuffing we will eat. Peace knowing that we are not alone.

In fact, that is the last thing I whispered to Noah before I had to leave, “you are not alone.”

The Mess Won’t Keep

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“Well, that was the last of the Christmas money,” I said to my husband, as I stooped over to sweep up the pile of plastic bits and pieces. Leftovers from toy packages.

“That’s good,” he replied, while tying up a trash bag of discarded cardboard.

Our house had looked like the morning after a frat party when we got out of bed, and we set to tidying quickly so we could relax and enjoy the day ahead. As parents of three daughters, all of the age that still played with dolls and such, we were used to picking up our fair share of strewn toys. But nothing could turn a house upside down like the aftermath of the holidays. Considering we had two birthdays in December, the situation was doubled. Add in the fact that long-distant relatives sent gifts too, and the mess never seemed to end.

That was life with little kids, though, right?! I mean, it wasn’t just me that consistently stepped on tiny, plastic shoes, or tripped over a misplaced Barbie car, right?! If my kids were breathing they were making messes. It didn’t matter the rules set, boundaries placed, or chores assigned. Their trash and treasures proliferated throughout our home. Most days began (after coffee, of course) with me corralling their belongings back into their bedrooms.

“The mess won’t keep.”

These are the words my aunt spoke to me over the phone recently after I had finished another round of “return thirty, three-inch, laughing little dolls to their case.”

I knew this. I knew all the truths that little ones didn’t stay little. I had personally watched a decade fly by since I had my first child. But it was her mood this particular morning that caused me to pause and count my blessings rather than count how many times I had picked up their clothes from the bathroom floor.

I ended up spending some time with my aunt this particular day. She was feeling down, and we went shopping and lunching together to lighten her emotional load. You want to know the weird thing about grief? It has no expiration date. My cousin had passed away thirty years prior, but that didn’t lessen the sadness that had erupted within her unexpectedly that morning over the loss of her son.

“I’ll never get him back,” she had told me.

Even though she was eternally minded and took solace in seeing loved ones again one day, like anyone, the loss of the here and now was many times much too hard to bear.

We had a good day, and though I know I left her back at her home still working through her grief in her own way, she had reminded me once again not to take a thing for granted. Not the work. Not my daughters. And certainly not the mess. After all, the mess wouldn’t keep. The old adage was true. We weren’t promised tomorrow, and cherishing my children was about more than how quickly time passed. It was true that time was fleeting, but time also was abrupt. The time we had with someone could be cut short at any moment. That was the real truth of it.

That evening I hugged my babies a little tighter, and I allowed the kiss on my husband’s lips to linger a little longer. I promised myself to keep in mind the truth of life’s fragility. This world was a mess. My house was a mess. Many times my life is a mess! But I’m reminded to count it all as joy. A beautiful mess, if you will. My job was to embrace the mess. After all, the mess wouldn’t keep.

If My Mother Was Still Alive

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If my mother was still alive she’d be turning sixty-five years old today. As a middle aged woman of forty-two, myself, that seems so young. Since I’ve started living an RV lifestyle I am surrounded by men and women decades older, who are full of life and vigor. It doesn’t seem fair sometimes that a woman who loved life so much is gone. It doesn’t seem right that a lady who desired grandchildren so intensely passed away before she met even one of (now) seven grandkids. Most of the time, I just try not to think about it.

Have you ever had someone in your life become someone else? What I mean is, they change. One day you’re close, the next day, not so much. It’s usually some huge event that fosters change, but sometimes, I guess, people just evolve. They become someone new, and that someone doesn’t fit into your life anymore. It’s almost like they died, like they dropped off the face of the earth. Or even if you do speak, it seems like such a foreign conversation.

You ask yourself, who is this person?!

It’s happened to me before. Someone I love dearly moves on to a new life, with new friends, new hobbies, new interests, and it feels like the person I once held so dear is no more. Except for the moments.

I’ve discovered, in my own personal experience that you are sometimes given glimpses, or precious moments of time where the old personality of your friend or loved one emerges, even if just briefly. Just such a moment occurred for me recently, and afterwards I joyfully shared it with my spouse.

“Do you know what I wouldn’t give to have a moment like that with Mom?” I asked my husband.

As we spoke I explained to my husband that while it could make me sad to lose a relationship through distance or time, that when it was reunited it was even sweeter than before. Though the relationship I had once known was gone, those spectacular glimpses into our prior connection were a treasure. And though they were far and few in-between, they still were wonderful. Like a breath of a sweet fragrance your memory had locked away for safe keeping.

If my mother was still alive today I would cherish each second with her for the fleeting time it was. Because now I realize that even one, five minute, phone conversation would be like Christmas morning. Even one hug, one glimpse of her smile, one sound of her raucous laughter, that would be the biggest thing for me. One small encounter would mean the world. One smell of her perfume, one minute of advice, one session with her gentle, listening ear. What I wouldn’t do for that one moment of time!

I wish I could buy her a birthday card today, but even more, that I could watch her read it. I would scour the card aisle, reading every one, and even then I know it wouldn’t get close to conveying how much I loved her, missed her, needed to see her face. But I sure would love the opportunity to try and see.

I wish she could meet the girls. I would let them visit whenever she asked, and I wouldn’t complain when she spoiled them! I’d laugh about how ridiculous they acted when they came back home hopped up on sugar and leniency. I promise I would.

I would listen to her say, “you did that exact thing when you were little!”

In fact, I yearn to hear her say that. After all, she was the only one who knew those things.

Did I learn to crawl first or cruise?

Was I easy to potty train?

Surely I wasn’t as persistent as my second child is, or as independent as the third!

What do you think, Mom?

I think that if my Mom was still alive I could finally pick up the phone and tell her what’s on my mind, instead of intending to call for a split second, before sadly remembering I cannot.

I would ask her advice. I would share how wonderful life has gotten over the last ten years, even though she hasn’t been a part of it, and I’d let her know that’s the only piece missing. Her.

As it stands, I long for forever, to not have to wish for mere moments, but to enjoy timeless togetherness. For that will be a fine day indeed. But until that day I’ll enjoy every morsel of each one that exists for me here on earth. I’ll savor the moments that pass too quickly and fade into memories before your very eyes. I’ll enjoy every smile, every laugh, each and every one. I’ll cherish my relationships, my family, and all the in between.

A Letter to the Grieving Family From Your Nurse

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To the Family of My Patient Who Died,

I know you see the nursing staff, albeit blurry through your veil of fresh tears. I know you automatically hold out your hand to take the box of tissues we offer while a torrent of racking sobs attacks your body. I’m sorry tissues are all I can offer at that time. 

You see, we wish to console you, and even as we stand there rather helplessly, we are trying to think of the words to say to somewhat soothe your frayed emotions. Even as we know there is nothing we can say or do. 

Do you know that when I back up to allow you time to grieve that I’m also turning my back trying to choke away my own tears? Do you know that when I hear your painful sobs it pains me too? I care for you in your grief, I empathize with your loss, and I feel pain right along with you. 

I’m not supposed to do that. I mean, I am to an extent. I am to carry compassion for my families, but I’m also expected to be strong enough to comfort you in your torment. I skate along a fine line of feeling your pain yet separating myself from it so that I can be who I need to be for you when you are weak. 

That’s why I turn away. That’s why I walk away. I don’t leave your side to abandon you in your grieve; sometimes I just collect myself so I can try. Try to help. When I hand you a simple box of tissues know my gesture means more than that tear-soaked paper. When I pat your back or hold your hand, please know my soul is reaching for your soul to carry some of the burden. And when I hold you in my arms as your tears soak my hair understand that I am no stronger than you. I’m just trying. 

Did you know that when they said it was the last cycle of CPR we would try that I cried out to God for your family? I knew you weren’t ready, and I prayed fervently, “please God, let the pulse come back.”

Sometimes your prayers are my prayers too; I just wanted you to know. When God’s will is not our own I am crushed also. But if it’s any consolation please realize that your loved one left this earth on the lips of my continuous prayers for them. And now I pray for you. 

My pain is not your pain. I would never be so daft to assume that was so, but when I hear you cry my heart breaks. When I see you grieve my throat burns with emotion, and in that moment my strongest desire is to take your pain away. 

When you cry, “momma,” I think of my own mother in Heaven. When you throw yourself on your husband’s body I am reminded of how fleeting life can be. When you break down and fall apart at the loss of your child I see my own babies’ faces. Every. Single. Time. 

Although I am strong for you, I am not without emotion. And even if you never see my tears, they are there. Sometimes all I can do is say I am sorry for your loss, so very sorry. Know that in your grief my heart is there with you. 

Sincerely,

Your Nurse

The Best Thing You Can Do For Someone Who is Hurting

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We all seem to have something in us that wants to be a fixer, and when we see someone hurting we feel this nagging urgency to help them. When someone you love, especially, is experiencing great sadness your top priority is often aimed towards setting things straight. This is what we think we must do to be a good friend, but it isn’t necessary. 

I recall after my mother died three types of people that approached me at her funeral. 

First there were the ones who came to my rescue with accolades of encouragement. They told me of how she was singing with the angels, and while it was certainly a comfort to know she was no longer in pain as she strolled the streets of gold, it seemed like these well-wishers were trying to take my grief away. And because of that a part of me wanted to punch them in the mouth. You see, I needed my grief at that time. I didn’t want to hear that I shouldn’t be sad because in reality I was devastated, and telling me I shouldn’t feel that way only made it worse. 

I don’t hate them for that. On the contrary I appreciate their desire to console me. It just didn’t help. 

Next there were the people who felt uncomfortable in my presence. It was as if they feared the stigma of death might leap off me and infect their own happy life. They might have offered a weak, half-hug then disappeared quickly. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed if it weren’t for the uncomfortable way they glanced in my direction as if pitying my tears, then swiftly would look away before taking their leave of absence. 

I didn’t fault these people for their reactions. After all it’s human nature to want to separate yourself from another’s pain. At the time when you’re hurting you don’t want pity, you just want to be left alone, so the absence of those who felt uncomfortable at my loss didn’t really bother me. 

I think the reason most people feel uncomfortable around another’s pain is because they don’t know how to fix it, and in their uncertainty they feel like a failure as a friend. So they do the only thing they know to do; they distance themselves. 

But then there was a third group of people in the aftermath of my mom’s death. These people were much like the others in that they too knew that eventually my grief would lessen with the knowledge of eternity. Yet they also didn’t know the right words to say to take away my pain. The difference with this small circle of individuals, though, is that they were fine with that. They understood that my grief didn’t depend on their ability or inability to make me feel better. They knew I was hurting, and they let me hurt. 

True friends will not try to fix you. They will support you, and they will help you as you need, but they won’t feel an urgency to make things better because in essence that only makes the person trying to fix you feel better. 

Friends who know you best will sometimes not even say a word. They will sit with you, being present as an available support system if conversation is required, but I think we all know that sometimes it’s just not. 

The best way to help someone who is hurting may require doing nothing. Sure you make yourself available, and you supply a shoulder to cry on or an ear to hear their pain expressed in racking sobs, but you don’t actually have to try and make it better. Because sometimes you just can’t. 

Many times when someone is experiencing emotional pain the best thing you can do is just be there. You don’t have to offer wise sentiments or an explanation of the grieving process. You just sit there. You listen. You hold them. You don’t try to fix it; rather you allow it to mend. 

Why Children Are Beaten, Abused, and Die

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It seems that lately I’ve seen so much heartache come across my Facebook news feed. Sad stories, injustice, unfathomable loss, and unimaginable fates, especially of children. I even read a news article today that left me with a heavy stone in the pit of my stomach. As I read the cruel, heartless treatment of an innocent baby I felt a lump form in my throat and grieving tears set up in the corner of my eyes. For even a child I didn’t know deserved grief. 

My first thought, as the sympathetic pain gnawed at my heart, was to ask God why. 

Why did that have to happen, Lord?

I don’t think God minds our questions, per se, and I believe He might understand the inquiry. Certainly He knows our human nature better than most, and He’s eager to speak His answers to our hearts when we earnestly seek His counsel. 

I think some people just assume that God deals out the awful things we see; that He sits on a high and mighty throne handing out punishment to His people to teach them a lesson. Is that why babies are mutilated, or kids die young?

I don’t think so. 

I don’t believe God wants to give your child cancer so that He may strengthen your relationship with Him. And while that may happen as a result, and others can also strengthen their faith through watching you, I don’t think calamity is God’s way of bringing His sheep to His side. That might be an unpopular opinion, but it is mine based on a character I see in scripture. 

Of note, while the Old Testament speaks at times of a vengeful, angry God, we also have a new covenant in the New Testament that details our Father. A Father who sent His own Son to slaughter just for you and me.

I don’t believe God is responsible for the death of children, but I do believe in free will. I know that the choices man makes are His own, and I know that those bad choices grieve our Father. 

If the Father interfered with this free will He has placed within us all, wouldn’t that negate the point? What kind of relationship is possible if you’re forced to adhere it it? While we have the choice to follow the Lord or not, we also are afforded the decision to do right or wrong. And wrong choices seem to hurt those around you the most. 

I do know that we do not battle solely against flesh and blood on this earth, but against principalities and powers of darkness. I know that sin exists in this world, and that sin brings death and pain. Not the Lord. 

So why do bad things happen to good people? Why do children die? Why are babies slaughtered? And why are innocent lives abused, beaten, mutilated, and raped?

I do not know. Honestly. I think what I said above scratches the surface quite a bit, but I also don’t claim to know all the answers. 

And when I do not know the answer to an impossible question I do the only thing I know to do. I cling to the answers I do know. 

I do know that God loves me, and I know that He sent His Son to save me from sin so that I may have eternity at His side. You do know this life is but a drop in the bucket compared to forever, right?

I do know that since God loves me that He wants His best for me. He doesn’t want to cause me pain. He doesn’t take my children from me. But He comforts me if this world does.

And He reunites me with them in Heaven. 

I do know that this world seeks to destroy me and mine, but Jesus came to save. So when I cannot answer the infamous “why” I cling to what I do know. 

I don’t think that clinging to my faith, and professing the goodness of God makes me naive in the face of awful things that abound. I think it just shows that I know where to turn in weakness. 

God does work all things together for His good, and believing that doesn’t tarnish the memory of innocent lives slain by this world. It just highlights my belief that God can bring beauty from the ashes, turn our tears into joy, and that His mercies are new every morning. 

Does that belief negate the fact that a child died or suffered? No. And it certainly doesn’t diminish the importance of a parent’s grief. Perhaps, though, it can bring hope to hurting hearts and weary souls. That’s what God can do. 

I’ll leave you with this. While there are so many verses that tell my spirit why I long for God’s refuge and might in this hurting world, these are the ones that stood out to me today. 

Lamentations 3:23 NLT

Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

Psalm 145:15-19 ESV

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.

Isaiah 61:3

and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.