Category: family

family

The Heartbreaking Road Home

Hannah

Not long ago a friend posted something with this quote: “You can’t’ protect your child from their testimony.” Boy did that hit me like a ton of bricks.

As parents, we often carry a silent hope that our children’s lives will be smooth, their paths straight, and their hearts unbroken. We pray for their protection, guidance, and joy. But buried in that desire—however noble—is often the unspoken wish that they never have to walk through darkness. We long to shield them from pain, from failure, from regret. And yet, we forget: testimony is not born in safety. It’s born in the fire.

That line echoes like truth wrapped in heartbreak. Because if you’ve parented long enough, you know: you can’t control the path your child walks. You can guide, you can pray, you can love—but you cannot write their story for them. And sometimes, their testimony includes things you never would have chosen. The very moments you feared—addiction, rebellion, heartbreak, wandering far from faith—may become the places where Jesus meets them most deeply. How easily I forget that this is exactly where Jesus met me in my own life; why would he not do the same for my children?

And that’s where surrender comes in. Real surrender. Not the kind that says, “Lord, keep them safe and comfortable,” but the kind that says, “Lord, whatever it takes.”

Because if their knees hitting the floor is what it takes for them to run to Him, then let it be.

This doesn’t mean we stop parenting or stop praying. It means we stop trying to be their Savior. We trust the One who made them, who knows their every thought, who sees the beginning and the end. We release them into the hands of a God who loves them far more than we do.

It’s not easy to watch your child walk through fire. It’s not easy to hear pieces of their story that break your heart. But it’s necessary sometimes. For them to know grace, they may have to meet the edge of their own strength. For them to recognize light, they may have to sit in some darkness. And for them to know the realness of God, they may have to discover how empty everything else truly is.

So to the parent who is watching a child wander, who is grieving the turns their life has taken, who is praying with trembling hands: take heart. Their story isn’t over. And God’s mercy runs deeper than any pit they may fall into.

Your child’s testimony may not look like the one you hoped for. But it might just be the one that leads them home.

Let go. Trust God. And remember: even the prodigal was still a son.

family

Messy Grace

Hannah

I learned an important lesson yesterday. Well, probably not just yesterday. I have a feeling I’ve been shown this before, it’s just that I need lots and lots of reminding.

My Little was really struggling. You know how someone steals one of your dollars and you decide to burn the other $99? Yeah. My little was having one of those days, and it wasn’t pretty. I had made several attempts to offer helpful input, which was just met with more frustration. And then I hit the parenting connection jackpot.

I was making dinner, and trying to do it in a hurry. Well actually, it was dinner time, but I was making breakfast because I failed to plan ahead. I had exhausted the week’s meal plan already and needed groceries and didn’t have time to thaw anything out, so breakfast for dinner was the last ditch attempt to act like I had it all together. Fortunately it is well received around here.

Within about 5 minutes I had efficiently gotten tortillas into the oven to warm, sausage rewarming in the skillet, diced potatoes in another skillet, had the cheese laid out, and all that was left was to wash and crack the eggs and get them into the third waiting skillet. I estimated I would have everything hot and put together within 15 minutes, perfect. Then my struggling Little walked through and the frustration and sadness was palpable, y’all.

One of my earlier suggestions had been to check out our emotion wheel and do the corresponding activity. I probably use this more than who I got it for, and I’ve found it helpful. The activity suggested was to hold ice cubes, which sounded intriguing to me, but was met with much resistance.

As I started counting out the eggs and grabbed a pump of soap to start washing them, an idea occurred to me. Washing the eggs would involve hands in cold water; maybe that would have the same helpful effect at derailing the struggle train. So I offered the task up, and it was accepted.

I could see that this activity had helped just a bit, so I started thinking of how I could keep us moving in this direction. I looked at the pile of eggs to be cracked, and my rational type A personality went to war with my empathetic emotional side. I could get the eggs cracked in less than 2 minutes with no bits of shell and no mess, keeping dinner on track with my projected time estimate. Or I could offer it up to my Little in hopes that it would help blow away the fog of frustration and sadness that was tinting the day. The type A in me sighed as I opened my hands to giving up control.

“Hey, would you please crack these eggs for me? It would be really helpful.”

I got a hint of an exasperated eye roll, but then sleeves were rolled up and small hands reached for the first egg, still glistening with the last coat of cold water. One by one the eggs connected with the counter, shells cracked, yolks plopped into the glass pitcher. 8 eggs, several shell splinters, and two hands covered in gummy slime later, there was a smile.

“Thanks for letting me do that, Mom. That was fun!” And then a few minutes later from the other room… “Mom, I just love you so much.”

I was still picking bits of shell out of the eggs and cleaning yolk off the side of the pitcher. And the faucet. And the sink. And the counter. My heart swelled and twisted at the same time as I realized that making him feel seen and needed and valuable was exactly what he needed, and my own need for control and perfection almost got in the way. I tucked these feelings in my heart, hoping to remember them for next time.

Friends, the messes are worth it. People are messy. My messiness may look different than yours, but we all have a deep need to be seen and valued beyond the messes that we make, and accepted anyway. It was a humbling lesson that I’m sure I will need reminding of again, so that’s why I’m sharing it. We all need the reminder sometimes that letting go of our own hangups may be just the thing needed to make the confidence of someone else soar.

PS~ add “crack some eggs” to the wheel under Anger —> Annoyed. 😉

family

Flying Away

Hannah

I tried to make dinner special last night. I started the crockpot in the morning and had my sides ready to go when cooking was about to finish. I set the table and lit the candles as we do every dinner time. Then I went about getting the meat from the crockpot ready to serve and discovered it was still closer to alive than it was ready to be plated. I chided myself for a moment, and then looked around for how to pivot. Frozen chicken patties. Check. Buns. Check. I set about pulling a new meal together, while explaining my predicament to each child who wandered into the kitchen to investigate why their tummies were growling.

When we finally sat down to eat, I looked around the table at each of my four children. Behind them the wall boasted a gallery of frozen moments in time we had experienced as a family; living, loving, laughing. I looked around at their faces again and soaked in every detail, knowing after tonight things would never be the same.

One of my babies is leaving the nest. After nearly 20 years of seeing her every day, she is ready to set out on her own adventure; following the lines of her own story. She has eagerly been preparing for this for months. Choosing colors for her own grown-up bedding, stacking a growing pile of boxes aside in the garage, and unnecessarily reminding me each time exactly how many weeks I have left to braid her hair for her.

I don’t feel like I was adequately prepared for this stage in life. Or maybe it’s that it came so quickly I feel caught off guard. Despite the butting of heads and clashing of personalities, I have deeply cherished having all 4 of my little sweetlings under my roof for so long. They are my safety net to fall into on the hardest days, the ones I can count on to give me reasons to keep getting out of bed each day, and they are the comic relief to any and every awkward situation.

I may tear up at the thought of all 4 of them not being here first thing Christmas morning, and I may be swallowing a lump in my throat every time I see that empty chair at the table, but I also am so very proud of everything she has and is becoming. It brings me joy to see her chasing her dreams and making them reality. And I appreciate the opportunity to see her keep her own home and let her own tastes and ideas be set loose as she builds a nest of her own.

I am confident we have given her every truth, every warning, every bit of wisdom we could impart as she grew from doting child to confident woman. It’s her turn to fly, and even with the distance I’m still going to be cheering her on, celebrating her successes, and forever a soft landing place for her hurts.

There will be sleepovers both here and there, and doggy play dates, and meeting up for mother/daughter coffee dates. All of these things I will cherish in my heart just as much as the things I did when she was under my wing. Oh, and I fully expect to be getting at least 4 phone calls a day as the true reality of adulting sets in, and I’m totally here for it. Let’s bring this season on!

family, Uncategorized

Grilled Cheese Moments

Hannah

First off, I am not trying to humblebrag by sharing this post. I want to share this very slap-upside-the-face moment I had with you because my deepest hope is that someone else out there will be able to slow down and have a few of these moments also; before we all wake up one day and realize it’s too late.

Parenting teens is a whole thing. Like, a whole thing that kinda gets glossed over in the What to Expect When You’re Expecting books, and I for one am a little miffed at the whole, “they’ll become complete aliens from ages 12-25 and then the sweet kid you know starts to re-emerge,” because there is /so much/ more to it than that, and I want to be totally here for it. All the things.

They tell us we are in charge of raising these little humans and teaching them to survive and thrive as adults by the time they are ready to jump from the nest into this maddening mess of a world we find ourselves in. If your kid shows up to college and has no idea how to separate whites from colors or boil water for ramen or how to Amazon Prime new socks before they wear holey ones to their potential in-laws for the weekend then we’ve clearly been blowing it at teaching them to be well-adjusted, responsible adults, and they will forever bare the scars of how their own parents left them so ill-equipped for life. Or so the pressure can seem, right?

And so throughout the child-rearing years I have done my best to think ahead to how they are going to function when I’m not there to pack their lunch for them, remind them to take a coat, and ask them when the last time was that they scrubbed the inside of their toilet. Probably to a fault. Yep, I would definitely say I err on the side of expecting much from them in anticipation that they will be able to handle much when they finally take flight from the familiarity of home. This week I had a moment though. A moment that reminded me they don’t always have to be nearly grown-ups; sometimes they are still that sweet little kid just needing their mom.

As my teens are growing and becoming involved in all the things I find myself ever pressing in to find where I’m “needed,” and perhaps more often than I’d like finding that they are quite the independent little adults now! Isn’t this what we have been training for?

This week one of my girls arrived home from a marathon day of school and then practice for a huge singing event that’s coming up. As she plopped all of her belongings on the table and then came to investigate the options for food, her request was pretty simple: “can you make me a grilled cheese?”

The me that we all know would say, “you can make yourself a grilled cheese; everything you needa is in there.” For some reason this time I hesitated. Instead, “of course I will. Give me a few minutes.” And in that snippet of time that it took for me to grill up a warm, melty sandwich something washed over me. It was like a lightbulb popping into a brilliant glow that chased away some of the shadows of self-doubt in my parenting. I realized by saying yes to her this time it told her that she was important and I was willing to put her needs first.

I feel like this is a message all of our teens need to hear, on repeat. They are out there bravely forging their way in this cloudy and upside-down world, and I know that the negative messages coming at them are immense. As their parents we have the power to show them that even though we know they are capable of making their own sandwich, they matter enough to us that we will put our own stuff on hold for a few minutes to say, “hey, you are worth it, and I love you.”

Our children’s slice of time at home is so small in comparison to the rest of their lives, and I want to do better at giving them those snapshot memories to tuck away and remember on the days the world is loud and they cannot find their place. I want them to know that wherever their journeys take them they will always have a safe place of refuge where they can count on being served up a piping plate of unconditional love and acceptance.

This teen thing, we are kind of just figuring it out as we go along with loads of prayers and a few strong drinks along the way. What “aha moments” are you having as you raise up your young adults? I’d love to hear what you are learning as you walk out the important job of raising little humans.

child loss, faith, family, grief, Infant loss, Uncategorized

When Suffering Repeats

Hannah

Some sweet friends of mine just experienced the horror of delivering their lifeless baby girl at 18 weeks. This is after they buried their infant son just a few years back, and have suffered through 3 miscarriages in between. 5 babies that they have gone through excitement and joy and dreaming and hoping just to end in a devastating tragedy. When does it stop?

As a young adult I thought suffering was a transient and limited thing. It was meant to teach important life lessons, and once those lessons were learned the trial would end and that would be it.

My middle years taught me such a different truth though. Suffering isn’t something brief to be passed through— suffering is an invitation into the very heart of God. Since the best thing I can do with my life is love God and love people, whatever brings an increase to that goal then has to ultimately be incredibly good for myself, and for those my life touches.

It is a very painful truth to accept though, much less embrace. When we experience the sacred being ripped from our lives over and over again it gives way to some big questions about the goodness of a God who has said His plans for us are for good and not disaster; a future of hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Over the years, an especially long season of suffering has shown me that grief, loss, deep pain, and crushing brokenness have been the best teachers in instructing me how to best experience Jesus’ flawless love, and have taught me to have compassion and love for others in a way I never could have known before the hard roads of suffering I have found myself on.

It has not always been with open arms that I have embraced the hardships in my life though. Not even close. I have had long, hard wrestling matches with God with lots of searching and hard questions.

For me, if a terminal disease is the way for me to learn greater love for God and people, then I must count it a gift, not something to be endured and rushed through as quickly as possible. The suffering I experience now is only going to get harder and harder, and it won’t end until I die, but every day I endure I am pressed more into the heart of God… and that allows me to walk through the valley of the shadow of death with a God who promises to comfort me (Matthew 5:8), renew my strength (Isaiah 40:31), strengthen and help me (Isaiah 41:10). Mysteriously enough, the process of walking with him through that valley and beside those waters is what teaches me how to better love and care for others. 

God may still choose to heal me, but only if my healing presses me further into love. Only if healing can accomplish eternally what a terminal illness cannot.

My prayers these days are less for the miracle I used to beg for, and instead for more days here to practice loving God and people, and I fight hard for that, especially for my husband and my children.

My most pressing question is no longer, “Why doesn’t God heal me?” but, “What capacity would I have for loving and empathizing with others if healing was my story.”

Nobody likes to feel stuck in suffering, but before you rush your hardest seasons away, consider what character is being developed in you that you would not have otherwise had the opportunity to grow into, and whose lives you are able to reach out and make an eternal impact on because of the fire you have walked through. It is painful, friends, but it is also some sacred , holy ground you get to stand on when what shatters you also becomes what helps you find your true purpose in life.

family

For the Love of Palliative Care

Hannah

For the better part of a year or more my weeks have had to revolve around appointments. With 14 separate specialists each handling a different aspect of my health, you can imagine how the calendar filled up.  Most of these doctors have done me well, and helped me cope with the different challenges of  having a degenerative neuromuscular disease, but the past several months have left me exhausted each time I’ve had to leave my home, and resenting the several times a week that I had to spend my daily energy on seeing a doctor.  Helpful, yes, but the truth is there is no cure, and they’re all just doing their best to help me be more comfortable and handle the unpleasant side effects of my condition.

My husband and I had a very honest conversation about all this, and agreed it was time to get hospice involved.  Instead of running all the time from doctor to doctor, I wanted to spend more time at home with my loves spending what energy I do have on them.  I needed all the doctors consolidated into one master plan. It was the /best/ decision. 

The palliative care people? They’re a different breed.  I remembered this from my days working on the ambulance, but it was reaffirmed to me the first time I met my new team.  They aren’t out to find me a cure; their goal is to keep me as comfortable as I can be with what I’ve got, and that is exactly what I needed.  I was met with such kindness.  They weren’t rushed and bothered like so many; they took the time to see and understand me. They acknowledged and affirmed everything I was going through and feeling, and they committed to only do what I needed most.

Our days have slowed down.  I have found myself with more energy because there is less running around.  I’m so deeply grateful to shift our goals and focus on loving each other even more. My doctor is so kind, and readily available when I need something.  When I landed in the hospital with septic pneumonia recently, my palliative care team was there, and they were the ones who stayed extra in my room and laid comforting hands on me while we spoke, asked me how I was feeling, and truly sympathized with the pain I was experiencing and wanted to help.  I am learning a whole new level of compassion from these people, and I can’t help but wonder if I show the same love when someone needs me.  I sure aim to, and I’m thankful to have such incredible examples showing me the way.

Please leave me a comment, it lets me know you’re listening!

death, faith, family, grief, gun laws, guns, hope, school shooting, sisters, suffering

Staring Down the Barrel

Hannah

“Hope holds a broken heart together.”

~Ann Voskamp

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I am sitting in the thick blanket of nighttime, listening to the steady rain beating the drum roll of its sixth hour on the hollow-sounding roof.  The intense piercings of a familiar pain keep me from my slumber, and I am delicate in my constant re-positioning and pill-swallowing to avoid waking the mounds of purring sleep close to me.  My bedroom started out far less crowded tonight, but as the starlit veil fell, came the padding of feet and the tiny, emotion-filled voices describing fear of the dark, tumultuous dreams, and loneliness that needed the quiet comfort of my presence near by.  So here we all are, their chests finally rising and falling with the rhythm of their dreams, and me wondering when things will go back to normal.

This was a headline week for guns.  A few state lines over, lives were shattered as another troubled youngster unleashed explosive fury on rooms full of unsuspecting  teens and adults, cutting short the futures of many who had planned on having more time.  All the articles and bar-room-conversations and social media statuses are blasting loud the positions and rules and amendments and movements that each are convinced will bring an end to this terror. All of this buzz about bullets and laws and security and the NRA, and all I can think is how will these kids face tomorrow?  Closer to home, how will my daughters face tomorrow?

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Just a few days after the most recent school shooting in Florida, my girls experienced their own kind of horror at the barrel of a gun.  My two, along with a roomful of other innocent, energetic young girls had come together to kick off the Spring season of cheer leading.  The room was full of ponytails, giggles, and camaraderie.  As they finished tying sneakers and warming up tight muscles, a new and horrifying ambiance sliced through the room.  My oldest daughter had slipped out for one last dash to the restroom before practice, and when she rounded the corner to go back into the gym, she ran right into him.  No one knew, so the coach opened up the door and let them both inside.  The next 90 seconds were so brief, but stretched eternally in the burning scars of terror that now streak the memory of everyone watching.  A few odd but indubious remarks were made to strike up a conversation with their coach as he positioned himself closer to the cash box where each parent had given the weekly dues.  Then, beneath his slouching hood, he grew expressionless and in the longest instant, the dark, round metal of a gun contradicted the innocence of the hairbows and glitter, and the giggles turned to a fear that would not be forgotten.  My girl, still the closest to him, tried to make a subtle move for a cell phone, but his instincts were fast and he tucked the metal box and dashed for the door.  Then the knee-jerk reactions of the coach slamming her shoulder into the door corner as she lunged after him, the instant tears of the little sister who felt the hysteria of watching her sister so close to a ruthless bullet, and the mayhem of the entire crowd as adrenaline was unleashed.

I am still incredibly grateful that this tasteless man had a thirst for money rather than for blood, and my girls got to come home safely that night.  What was no longer safe though, was their security and peace of mind.  Tears upon tears from the two of them and the best friend as they clung exhausted in an embrace of profound emotion in my kitchen that night.  Panic, flashbacks, sweating whenever they found themselves in a room too far from the safety of knowing a trusted adult was arms-length away.  An incessant need for the security of a cell phone pressed closed whenever they have to leave the house. Nightmares and sleep-screaming through the deepest hours of the night, peace divided by having to learn that sometimes these things happen for no good reason.

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Tomorrow my girls will face walking back into that gym.  My oldest will relive the details of his coat and his birthmark as she walks through the same hallway where he first cut into her memories.  My youngest will remember the powerful emotions of watching helpless, wondering if she was going to see her sister’s future rewritten.  They will have to come to terms with these memories and these fears, and I will support in them whatever ways that they need, but I can’t help but wonder… what about the kids who watched friends and classmates and teachers gunned down in front of their eyes this week?  How will they find the courage to walk back down those halls?  I truly cannot grasp it.

Everyone has an opinion about what needs to happen.  More guns, less guns.  More restrictions, more screenings, more freedom, less.  So many different points of view.  I have an opinion too, but I’m not going to share it right now.  Right now all I can think about is the downright brokenness of it all. The terror, the pain, the distrust and the loneliness that has gone down in irreversible ways.  The truth is, regardless of what decisions are made about whether or not guns are legal and what the process will be to get one, there is an issue at the foundation that is something we all hold the answer to.   This world needs people who care more for the hearts of their neighbors than about how their status will suffer if they are seen breaking bread together.  It needs hearts that can anticipate the needs of others, and read from the eye motions and the face lines when someone needs an extra dose of kindness.  This world needs people who are wholly committed to seeing each other for what they are; other humans who are hurting and struggling and trying to make it, and in desperate need of being loved, accepted, and understood.

We don’t need gun laws, whether for or against, in order for this to happen.  We simply need to look up, and look around, and reach out with everything we’ve got in order to say, “I see you, and I know you’re hurting, and I’m going to walk you through it.”

We all just want to be seen.  Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you are part of the answer?  What is it that’s holding you back?

Mitchell-85

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daily graces, endurance, family, hope, joy, suffering, trials

Bits and Pieces

Hannah

Mitchell-199

I have this blank canvas to scribble my thoughts, but lately I have let them recycle, tumbling unsorted in the confines of my mind, timid of what people will think if I speak out loud.  Someone told me not long ago that I should try writing about something else.  I took it to mean people do not want to hear the confessions and wonderings of my soul; they are probably rolling their eyes and turning off their screens.

After talking with a close friend about what else to write about, I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to write about something “else,” and I don’t know how to.  The reason I write about what I do is that it flows quite easily when I need to release and process difficult things.  It’s therapeutic for me to free up some space in my thoughts by unleashing the tangle of words and emotion that sometimes becomes difficult to find space for.  Part of me also supposed, in the beginning of this place, that someone else would find hope and strength in the raw processing of the journey of my life.

I have been learning more lately that it is okay to let every experience, good or bad, shape who I am and how I view things.  Let’s be real; life is never going to be all rainbows and bubblegum, so if we are going to become something other than tainted and bitter, we are going to have to figure out how to filter through our ups and downs and pick out the important growth-inducing bits, and let the rest hit the shredder.  That’s what I’m trying to do here; sift through the daily barrage of twists and turns and cling to the slivers of truth that will deepen my character and make me a softer, wiser human for the other people on this expedition with me.

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Think back to the last hard, life-changing thing you went through.  It might have been the loss of a loved one, loss of a job, a difficult diagnosis, a traumatic world-event… you know how you had that numb feeling for awhile afterwards?  Thankfully we all have this mechanism that only lets us take in what we are capable of at the time.  Our simple minds and hearts would simply explode if the full force of things hit us all at once.  So we take it in little by little, in easily digestible chunks that we can begin to process and break down.  That movement happens in the telling of the story.  Each time you share your story, your mind is able to handle a little bit more and apply a greater understanding than it could the last time, until eventually you can boldly tell your story, maybe still with some tears, but with a confident and understanding boldness that has replaced the initial shock and bewilderment.  That is my place here.  I will keep on sharing the plot twists of my life as I continue to find deeper meaning and healing in the new details I understand every time I brave it.  And if in doing that some of you are able to pull out the important truths, the pieces that make you bold and brave and inspired, then even the more reason to keep shouting it loud.  My story.  My unbelievable, true, heart-breaking, beautiful, hope-giving story.

Will you share yours too?

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brain bleeds, care packages, cerebral palsy, child loss, Child Loss Grief, endurance, family, hope, losing a child, picu, VP shunt

PICU Pick-Me-Up

Hannah

As anniversaries and birthdays tick by,  I will never stop believing that those beautiful, inspiring, powerful 4 and a half months were meant for so much more; that such a short life was meant to be a catalyst for something exceptional.

So here I stand in the heat of another heavy July searching for ways I can use my little girl’s story to encourage kindness and inspire hope.  Well guess what, this one is not just on me… I’m laying this all out there because each one of you reading this has the power to make a terrible day a little bit better, to bring a flicker of hope to a hurting heart, and to keep on shouting that kindness matters.

One of the most trying things you can go through as a parent is having a critically ill or injured child.  Your world stops, and all your focus goes into every detail of the fight for more time with your little one.  I remember it uncomfortably clearly, but because of that, I can see a need that’s easy to meet.

On the 5th anniversary of standing in a crowded PICU room, watching my whole future change, I took a solid breath, and pressed the familiar button in a quiet elevator to be whisked to the 3rd floor.  Stepping off was a shock to every part of me as the colors and smells and sights all came screaming back.  I was on a mission though, for my brave daughter who fought on the other side of those doors, I could help bring a breath of grace to another parent shouldering the weight of the world.

My kids had helped me gather things throughout the weeks that we set aside for this very occasion.  It was easy to remember being a parent pacing across scuffed tiles between a stiff vinyl chair and a bed that contained a piece of your very being.  A parent who when asked, couldn’t actually remember the last time they had eaten an actual meal, a parent that spoke toward the ground so as not to exhale too deeply the breath of stale coffee that had sustained the 72 hours of numb awakeness  preceeding the current sunrise.  I could clearly remember being the parent that in each hurried bathroom break had wadded up wet, scratchy brown paper towels drizzled with disinfectant smelling hand soap and had desperately scrubbed at salt stained cheeks and sweat soaked shirt seams in hopes of concealing the fact that they dare not leave their child’s room long enough to run home for a shower.  I shook my head at remembering the emotionless nurse that had told me they weren’t allowed to spare me a Tylenol for my pounding head, but that I was welcome to check myself into the ER downstairs and have some prescribed by a doctor.  I acutely recalled the desperation coupled with simply surviving without having time to think about your own needs.  Well here is where WE can make a difference.

The kids and I put together care packages meant for the parents of each of the children in the PICU.  Took time to think through all the things I remember needing or wishing for during our long hours there, and tried to put together a smattering of things that would actually be used and appreciated.  I’ll share with you some of the things I came up with, and I hope some of you will run with it from there.  You can do as much or as little as you want.  It could even be just one good care package; I know that you will be making a difference in someone’s life during one of their hardest days.

If you decide to go spread some “Ellie Love” on your local PICU, I would so love to hear about it! You can reach me in the comment section, or by my email displayed in the sidebar.  Remember that whole “ripples in the pond” analogy?  This is one of those opportunities!  Get out there and spread some kindness and encouragement, make those small but meaningful moments spread joy in a way that’s contagious; that shouts the victory of the short but mighty lives like Ellianna Grace.

 

I grabbed an “adult” coloring book for some mindless distraction.  Something to keep you occupied that doesn’t require much thought.  Crayons break, colored pencils need sharpening, so I tried to play it safe with markers.  BONUS was coming across little LED clip on book lights. No more straining your eyes trying to use the dull glow of your phone because you don’t want to wake your sleeping kiddo.

 

Tissue that is not made from recycled sandpaper.  Or whatever it is that the hospitals use.  I realize they probably get a discount, but after the 37th time of scrubbing at your teary eyes and runny nose with those things, people start asking you how you got rug burn.  And seriously, look at th sweet message on this package of Kleenex.  They get it.

 

It’s safe to say a good majority of the meals a PICU parent has consumed were rattled from a vending machine with various pocket change, chased by some carbonated mess of sludge which is going to give them the mother of all sugar crashes later.  Its hard to be portable AND nutritious when doing this, but do your best to think outside the box of cookies, pop tarts, and potato chips.  Peanut butter and a spoon perhaps?  We love these fig bars because you get a decent serving of fruit, and they tend to fill you up for a good stretch of time.  Also think what you can do other than soda… something they can’t get from the hallway vending nook.  Again, not going to be the healthiest choices out there, but it is a good change to have something refreshing to snack on. The Werther’s?  Well those are just all out comforting, and perfect for keeping your mouth moist and your jaw doing something besides clenching.

 

GOOD gum.  Many of these items I was able to get at my dollar store, but a few things I specifically hit up the grocery instead, because quality mattered.  Imagine your breath already reeks from days blending into nights blending into days of eating whatever you can wherever you can, and usually washing it down with a steady flow of whatever coffee is most readily available.  Well then you’re talking to doctors and techs and asking questions of the nurses, and let’s just not have to worry about whether or not they can smell that you haven’t brushed in 3 days.  Splurge for a gum with a powerful flavor that’s going to l a s t.  I love the 5 brand flavors.  Especially their mints are super strong and not only wake you up and freshen your breath, but you’re more likely to spit it out because you’re tired of chewing rather than the flavor having worn out.  Again with the eating and the coffee comes along these handy little disposable mini toothbrushes, pre-loaded with toothpaste.  Come on.  Those have to have been invented with the hospital parent in mind.  CHAPSTICK!  Basically my security blanket, I think most women and some men would agree it’s always good to have some within arms length.  Excedrin tension headache is what I picked, but any similar product that’s going to fight a headache or an ache or pain could be a daysaver for one of these parents.  As I mentioned before, the hospital is too legally bound to slip you a few Tylenol, and most parents are probably just going to suck it up and fight through the rest of the day trying not to think about their throbbing head or aching muscles from standing vigil for 11 hours.

 

 

Hygeine.  Well, let’s take a poll about how many parents are stepping away from a PICU bedside to indulge in a hot shower.  That’s going to be basically… none of them.  Having a few things available that allows a parent to take a quick bathroom break and come back feeling a little fresher is  a valuable investment.  I grabbed packs of disposable body cloths (basically thick, better smelling baby wipes that you can essentially take a sponge bath with), hair ties or clips… because any woman like me is never going to be able to find one when she actually needs it, and dry shampoo.  That’s one of those inventions I would like to shake someone’s hand about.  It can go for guys or for girls, and when you’re skipping out on your shower for a few days, it’s really refreshing to be able to get your hair looking and smelling cleaner without much effort.
A deck of cards…. realizing no one may be in the frame of mind to be concentrating on a game, but they can just as easily be a stress relief used to shuffle and shift through idle hands.  ALCOHOL FREE HAND SANITIZER.  We have all noticed that around pretty much every corner in the hospitals is a handy dandy machine quick to eject a foamy mess that will kill most every germ, as well as the texture of your hands.  For a parent that has been in the hospital for several days or longer, that stuff starts getting really harsh on your skin.  If you can find an organic, non-alcohol hand sanitizer, get that in your care package pronto.  Of course I pitched in the brand I stand behind, which is Young Living’s Thieves anti-bac.  It smells amazing but not overpowering, and leaves my hands feeling smooth and refreshed in contrast to the goop so readily available around the hospital.
I packed each care package into a gift bag with a hand written note, not sharing the details of my journey, but letting them know I have stood in their shoes and hope in some small way these packages can make a few things simpler while they are fighting a bigger fight.  So get out there, find a PICU or a NICU near you and reach out.  It may seem trivial, but standing on those broken grounds, it’s the little things that fix the big picture.
In honor of my Ellie Grace, I will never stop saying your name, sharing your story, and spreading the love that you so easily coaxed out of everyone who met you.
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faith, family, New Year's, suffering

Hoping for More

Hannah

A year of dreams and magic and smooth sailing, less struggle and more blessings; that’s what we’re all hoping for, right?  I imagine we all felt the same at the beginning of this year too; high hopes for 12 months without conflict or illness, but then not too far in, we started facing disappointments and hurts, and before we knew it we were scraping by the months, just trying to survive, determined to make it to the fresh start of a new year. Suddenly we are at the end of a string of long, hard places, clinging desperately to the fray and looking up for a stronger, longer rope, just to realize that our safe passage isn’t guaranteed.  That those hopes to slip through unscathed are just that, hopes, and the days ahead of us have just as much potential to leave us burned as the barren months behind us did.

 To be honest, I held my breath for it too.  For the clean slate, the fresh start; the promise of a year filled with goals and newness and such determination for good, that surely this would be the year to whisper about, the one that brought great good.  Well I shudder to admit, but as we rounded the corner of the end of December, 2016 kicked us in the gut before we even crossed the threshold.  Or maybe it was 2015 getting one last punch in. Either way, we already know this year isn’t starting with the expectations we placed on it.  In fact, I flat out didn’t even want to celebrate it; dreaded this night and the tears and the pain and the reality that once again we stand in a place where we have no control over our lives.

But you know what… hanging onto to our own ability to control our lives is what sets us up for heartbreak.  I have held too long. Even when I know I can do nothing to help myself, I have been hell-bent on self preservation.  That’s not what our Father asks of us.  He asks simply, gently for us to open our hands… to surrender our lack of faith and trust that even when the weight of the world threatens to crush us, He will never let go.

There are no guarantees for this year to come; our dreams may crumble, our relationships disappoint, our health fail, our people leave us, but we don’t have to be sure of the future to be sure of our security through it.  So lean with me, press into whatever is coming, walk into this new year with a brave heart and a determined faith, because we don’t need to know what’s ahead, only Who is behind us.

I knew tonight I would be standing at the edge of this new valley, looking out over the unknown, watching from the outside as everyone else was sharing the joyful moments of ringing in their new year, while I stand holding broken pieces.  I know I have a choice to let fear and sadness overwhelm, or to trust that I can free-fall into the unknown with the confidence that I will never hit the bottom.  Never.

I can be thankful for all that has happened, because in the end, that’s what my faith is made from.  I know that whatever is hard in 2016, He will work for good.

So happy New Year, my friends.  Let Him make your broken so, so beautiful.

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