Thoughts on a lonely night

She is sixty two years old. She has three children, and nine grandchildren, plus two stepchildren, and three step-grandchildren, and one on the way. She is dying. She has no health insurance. She has no life insurance. She can't afford to stay in the hospital, so her husband hasn't been to work in two months so he can take care of her. She is getting worse all the time. No one knows for sure how long she'll live. A day. A week. A month. Three months. No one has much hope beyond that. Does it matter that she hasn't gone to church since she was 18 except once for the blessing of a grandchild? Does it matter that she has been an alcoholic for all of her adult life? Her step-grandkids know her as grandma: provider of toys and hours of fun. They love her. Her step-son tolerates her, even though he still blames her for destroying his parent's marriage. Her husband is slowely sliding into depression, and turning to the alcoholism that he has been fighting for decades. His son fears that as soon as she dies, her husband will drink himself into a stupor and die himself. His son doubts that either of them will be alive by the end of the year.

He is maybe thirty years old. He has a 13 year old daughter, who hasn't seen her mother since she was a toddler. Less than a year ago he married his live-in girlfriend, mostly because her family didn't approve of her living with him unmarried. Her family didn't approve of the marriage either. Her family has nothing good to say about him. They see him as a lazy, entitled, man acting like a teenager. They think he is a leech sucking the life and money out of his new wife. He hasn't worked in years, drawing disability benefits, and refusing to even attempt getting a job in fear that he would lose those benefits. His wife had been getting disability benefits too, until recently, and she got a job, much to his displeasure. He has been struggling with diabetes for all of his life, and because he didn't properly care for his body, he has gone blind, lost most of the use of his legs, his kidneys have all but stopped functioning, and now his lungs are rebelling too. No one knows if he will recover. Most doubt he will. He is probably dying. Part of his wife and daughter are dying with him. 

She can't have children. That is what she wants more than anything else in life. After trying for nearly a decade, she and her husband became foster parents. In the meantime they saved their money to adopt a baby. They were finally matched with a birth mom, and she was so excited, but at the very last moment, the mom decided to keep the baby, as well as all of the money that the couple had given to help with medical bills, etc. She was heartbroken. Many young children came in and out of their home as foster children. One in particular she fell in love with. The child came to her when he was 15 months old, still unable to crawl, or eat any solids, having always been given a bottle by his mother. She raised him up until he was nearly four years old. One by one, the child's family had their parental rights terminated. His dad, his grandparents, and finally his mom. This meant that she would finally be able to adopt him and make him her own. They were just waiting on a final court hearing when her husband got arrested. Another child in their home at the time had dislocated his arm. The doctor also noticed bruises and internal bleeding. This child had been hurt on multiple occasions, as had other children that had come through the home. Her husband was arrested for ten counts of child abuse. The children, including the child that was going to be theirs were taken to another foster family. A few days later she was arrested for and not reporting the abuse. The child now cries and asks where his mom is. He has been wrenched from the only loving home that he has ever known, and will likely never see them again. She got off on bail, and is in the process of selling everything she owns, and preparing to move back to live with her parents assuming she doesn't go to jail. Her husband will be serving a minimum of a ten year sentence. Apparently her husband had hurt her too, but she didn't report him because she didn't want to risk losing the child that she already saw as her own. Now it is too late, and there is probably no chance of her ever having a child, foster, adopted, or otherwise. Her heart is broken, and she says she feels like she is dying.

He is 18 months old. He is excited and energetic. He loves to run. His mother took him out for a walk. He refused to ride in a stroller. He refused to hold her hand. He refused to be carried. He just wanted to run. He stopped to point out every rock, every flower, every bird, every dog, a squirrel, and even a couple of deer. He screamed when his mother insisted on holding his hand on the busy road, but when she let go when they got onto a path off the street, he took off running squealing with joy. Running full pelt down the path, he hit a bump in the sidewalk and tripped. He scraped one knee, but not too badly. His mother comforted him for a minute, but he still refused to hold her hand or let her carry him. Within two minutes he is off running again. Again, he tripped. This time he scraped his other knee to the point that it is bleeding. His mother really just wanted to pick him up and carry him home quickly to clean up his knee, but he had other ideas. After allowing his mother to comfort him for a few moments, he took off running again. Once again, he tripped, this time scrapping up both knees, and the one that was already bleeding is now dripping blood down his leg. This time he allowed his mother to carry him, for a little ways, then once again he was squirming and struggling to get out of her arms. She insisted on carrying him until they got back to their own street, then she put him down to allow him to run up the steep hill back to their house. Heedless of the blood dripping down his leg he runs in pure delight of being alive, of being outside, of being able to run. Once they got home, he plopped himself down on the ground, looked at his legs and cried. He cried as his mother carried him into the kitchen. He cried as his mother cleaned and patched his legs. He cried until she gave him a snack, which he happily ate, then took a nap.

I sit still, and quiet, trying to feel the faint flutters of motion inside my belly. I don't feel them often, because they are still small and infrequent. But I feel them now, and I marvel over what it means to be creating life. Life seems like such a fragile thing, here one moment, and gone the next. What a blessing it is to be the instrument that God uses to begin the life of one of these precious human beings.  What a responsibility it is to raise one, or four. To teach them, to love them, to fear every day that something could happen and they could be one of those experiencing tragedy. Trying to love life through all of the tragedies, like continuing to run while knees are bleeding.

Stuff happens, and sometimes it is awful, so horribly awful that we just want to shut down. I haven't experienced any of those tragedies, but many of those close to me have. Everything from miscarriage, death, divorce, jail... I feel like I have no frame of reference to even be able to empathize. I want to help. I want to. There is nothing I can do. Would it help if I talked to them? would I say something dumb and insensitive just because I don't understand? There are many times when I want to just be there for someone, to let them know that I care and that I love them... but I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything. So often, I find myself just not saying anything, just because I don't have anything to say, but that doesn't mean that I don't care.