WINTER BLUES

January and February are hard months for many of us in Northeast Ohio.  There are many cloud-filled, sun-less days. It’s rainy, it’s snowy, and we spend too much time indoors.  For me, there is special poignancy to these months though because it is always the months my mind most focuses on my last days with Lydia.  I remember the last round of chemo in the hospital; that last trip to the clinic to essentially say “goodbye”; and then the bittersweet trip to Disneyworld and Florida.  That trip, she returned home in the baggage compartment of the airplane, in a coffin we picked out.  I remember every date of those days, and can place exactly what happened when and where we were, right up until the day she died:  February 24, 2009.

This January has been especially tough.  I had a very difficult case I was trying.  And I have battled an illness myself that turned more serious over time.  Many of you know that I had my own little “near death” experience when Lydia was a baby.  I have a very rare allergic reaction to antibiotics known as serum sickness.  Essentially, my body treats antibiotics as foreign substances, and even 7-14 days after I take an antibiotic, I can and have had life-threatening reactions to the medicine.  I don’t often go to the doctor. Because I can’t really take antibiotics safely, I fight things off using my own little homemade, Appalachian-inspired remedies.  Most of the time these work, but because of my run-down condition, all my fail-safe measures failed, and I had to go to the doctor.  When you have my condition you think that any infection could mean a near death or deathly hallows type of experience.   Being sick for me takes me way too close the edge.

I like to think I am a person of faith, but really, I think I am probably a fraud.  I think part of the reason I converted to Catholicism and why I am so involved in the Church is I think if I keep going back, somehow I can get over my anger at God, come to some kind of peace, and regain some measure of faith about the purpose of religion.  We all know that in good times faith is easy, but it is not so easy in hard times.  I’m going to be brutally honest and tell you that I still struggle daily with why Lydia was taken.  It is still the worst thing that has ever happened to me; it still feels like a grave injustice.  All the prayers didn’t save either her or many of the others kids I know from the hospital who have died.  I still struggle with understanding why, if prayer works, and it makes a difference, why prayers aren’t always answered.  I don’t want to hear something trite on this topic.  Until you have walked in my shoes, don’t judge how hard I prayed, or tell me it was God’s will, or tell me that suffering can be a beautiful thing.  If you have never watched a child suffocate and die from leukemia, yes, I said suffocate, try and keep quiet.   Really. 

I think it’s a lie to tell people that things get better with time.  Actually they don’t.  Especially when it comes to the death of a child.  Lydia would be 13, almost 14 now.  I can’t even picture what a Lydia of that age would be like.  But I see all the Chinese adoptees that I helped with getting U.S. birth certificates and adoption decrees turning 13, so I can kind of see what it would be like.  I see people with three living kids, and think about what it would be like for Lydia to be the big sister and protector of Max.  She would have beat up any kid that attempted to bother her sweet Max.  Gosh she loved him so.  And she would have loved doing Sarah’s make up and hair.  She would have loved being the big sister to a little sis.    

I realize there is no easy, and gee, not even a quick fix (if 8 years on can even be considered in the realm of “quick”) to ever, really get over what for me has been life-altering.  It has thrown into complete disarray my faith, my livelihood, my parenting skills, my relationship with others, but most of all, my own internal guide.  Everything I thought I knew about life was thrown into question or just plain trashed.  Maybe the only good thing that I can honestly say changed, in a positive way, internally for me eight years on is that I can truly understand and am sympathetic to people whose lives are in tumult.  I understand their bungled, jumbled lives and their poor decision making and thought processes, because in desperation, anger, sorrow and despair, we don’t always have the best judgment.  The other funny thing about life is how a snowball rolls downhill to become an avalanche.  It’s as if one bad things happens and then snowballs into a million others.  Let’s suppose your daughter gets leukemia, you close your business, you spend all your retirement taking her to Florida and buying her whatever she wants, then when she dies, you spend like crazy on the other kid to make up for what you didn’t and will never get to do for the other child, and then you spend gobs of money adopting again….here comes the snowball.  See, it’s something like that.

The best thing I can try and tell anyone is that life is going to throw you a curveball.  Maybe a really wicked one like Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians throws.  It will leave you bewildered, befuddled, and maybe even concussed.  When we choose to love others and take risks, we come to the home plate of life. In some ways, we want to see what type of pitch we get.  There could be the glory of a homerun in that pitch, or it could mean the end of a brilliant World Series’ run.  When the curveballs happen, learn from them how to be a better hitter, and more patient at the plate.  Don’t be careless and swing at the first pitch thrown, but also don’t let the pitcher keep you off the plate.  Make him throw strikes.  I think there is an important point here that I can tell you about but just can’t seem to do.  The best hitters don’t get angry when they strike out.  They learn how to be better hitters.  My problem is I’m in a slump.  I can’t get over my anger and so can’t figure out what the problem with my swing is or why Kluber’s curveball is so hard to hit.  I know there’s a lot of baseball in there but hey, I’m a huge baseball fan.

The bottom line is I don’t really have the answers…or maybe better said:  I think I know the answer, I just can’t implement it.  I want to believe all’s well that ends well, but looking around, I don’t think that is actually true.  We all see injustice, all the time in the world around us.  Sometimes injustice is so palpable, we can feel it in our bones.  Bad things do happen to good people.  Children do die from horrible diseases.  I can’t and won’t even attempt to justify how or why God allows this, let alone how it could be His will.  What I can say is that the only way I really know how to live out my faith is by action.  I am going to keep seeking, keep praying, keep trying, keep struggling, keep helping others, if only because that’s the only hope I have of somehow finding God and regaining any peace.  It may take me a lifetime.  I hope someday I can get there.  But I guess I also know that every journey begins with a single step.