Two Sides of a Coin
As is probably common among most people, I have thought a great deal over the past several days about 2022 as a whole. I have decided that this year has unquestionably been the hardest, most difficult of my entire life. While I have experienced hard circumstances and loss well before this year, the way it all unfolded over the past 12 months was what made it so excruciating.
Beginning even last December, we knew that my grandmother’s health was too precarious for her to live much longer. We began 2022 with the belief that she was in her last days. We told her goodbye, gave her permission to go, prayed and sang over her, but she lived on. I’m eternally grateful for the gift of time that I was given, weeks of going and sitting with her and holding her hand. And in early March, God was gracious enough to let the exact circumstances around her death to be as perfect as possible for my mother and me. But as a girl whose mother is her best friend, watching my mother’s journey of grief through Granga’s last days was painful. And as the reality of life without her mother set in, I felt Mother’s sorrow so acutely.
I think the thing that most defines the agony of this year has been the brutal battle with my middle son’s health. Only 3 weeks shy of turning 10, Isaac became very ill, and we’ve been adjusting to life with a medically complicated child for the past 7 months. He was born with an inherited metabolic disease and made a miraculous recovery from near death as a newborn. But we had the wind knocked from us in June with the finding of a previously undetected heart defect as well as a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. He ranked in our veteran doctor’s “Top 10” of worse cases he’s ever seen, and disappointingly, he still remains far from being well. He’s endured 36 total days of hospitalization, countless scans and tests, 3 colonoscopies, 2 PICC lines, 3 NG tubes, and daily, weekly, and monthly medications—and we received word yesterday that the disease continues to spread in spite of treatment. Matt and I have cried so many tears while trying desperately to attempt to keep life moving for Isaac and our other 4 children. And as I would imagine most parents can relate, our hearts have been heavy with the feeling that we would rather the universe take us to an alley and beat us black and blue if only our boy could just be left unscathed.
Yes, the weight of 2022 has been almost unbearable. But as my mother has reminded me for years, every coin has 2 sides. The moments of our greatest sorrows have managed to yield immense blessing. In losing my grandmother, a chain of events was set into motion that resulted in a Facebook post of mine going viral, an accomplishment I had longed dreamed for. Tens of thousands of people learned about my sweet grandmother, and I was interviewed multiple times where I shared about the phenomenal woman she was. My mother and I have experienced a unique healing through it. And in the pitch black of grief amidst Isaac’s illness, our family has never felt more loved and cared for by relatives, co-workers, and friends. People have opened their homes, wallets, and hearts to meet needs for us even when we didn’t vocalize them. The astounding love we’ve experienced has blown us away.
As this year gives way to the next, it is my deep hope that with every challenge of 2023, I can strive to see even the smallest glimmer of sunshine in the darkness of sadness and sorrow because mountain tops cannot exist without valleys, and every coin must have 2 sides.
