May 9th

Posted by Andy on May 9, 2012 in ANDY'S BLOG WITH UPDATES | 4 comments

On Friday night, after being told that Aimee might not survive the night, my sweet mother-in-law Jean West looked at me and said, “Here we go again!”

My wife Donna looked confused, but before she said anything, her sisters Deidra and Debra said, “Yep, we’ve been here before.” Donna’s confusion was justified. She didn’t remember because she was the first miracle I enjoyed in my life.

Twenty three years ago, Donna suffered a closed head injury as a result of a head-on collision in Spartanburg, SC. It was raining heavily that day when Donna swerved out of control into the path of another vehicle. The passenger of the other car suffered a terrible multiple compound fracture in her left leg while Donna’s skull bounced off of the windshield. Nope, they didn’t have airbags in 1989.

When I first saw Donna in the Spartanburg Regional Neuro Unit, I was stunned. She laid there, tubes protruding from her nostrils, mouth, neck and arms, respirator pumping and torso heaving in odd unison. Her head was bruised and horribly swollen. There’s no way that was my wife. Someone made a mistake. “No mistake”, the nurse said. I was stunned.

Donna was non-responsive. Lifeless. Machines doing the work that her body could not do. I was devastated. After standing there, not quite knowing what to do or say, I walked back to the Neuro waiting room, angry, totally dejected and pathetically self-focused. God, why did you do this to me?

I cried, but the tears that fell were faithless bombs of self-pity. I looked at my parents and Donna’s parents and they all hugged me and consoled me. I was beyond consolation. How do you comfort someone who lacks the ability to provide comfort? How do give hope to one who lacks faith?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved and I still love my wife dearly. I had simply never been required to make a stand of faith in my life. I was baptized at the fresh young age of nine, an age when faith is a word in a Sunday School book that you toss aside after the class is over. Sure, I had my share of challenges, but I had never before been forced to deal with the potential loss of a loved one. God must have hated me. What did I do wrong?

Perhaps my greatest gift that night, and the greatest gift of my life, was the gift of a Deacon’s Bible in the Neuro waiting room. Had it not been for my Baptist upbringing, I might have reached for the month old copy of Sports Illustrated, but I knew there was nothing in there but old news unworthy of reading.

When I opened the Bible, I thumbed a few pages and the pages stopped turning on James 1:

“2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”

To this day I consider James my moment of epiphany. That was the first time I truly understood what faith was. This realization was sudden and overwhelming. I wept uncontrollably and my family moved to console me, but I stood up and smiled, because I knew Donna was going to be fine. Seven days later, Donna emerged from her coma and she is by my side to this day.

On Friday afternoon this scene played out again, but this time my tears were for Aimee, for the young life that was lying on that OR table, for the “lost” promise of youth. I felt nauseated and I walked to the restroom. As I stood looking in the mirror, I turned on the water and watched the tap flow. The water fell “like a wave of the sea” and I was reminded of that day twenty three years ago. Overwhelmed by a wonderful sense of peace, I emerged from the restroom, embraced Donna and told her it would be alright.

We all experience periods of despair, but when you mourn you need to question what you are mourning. Are you simply pitying yourself? Are you throwing in the towel and quitting? Are you tossed about like a wave on the sea? If you are then God will not answer you. Be selfless, love those around you and believe in only the best possible outcome. That’s what I believe. That is what Aimee needs. I know this is true, because I have been here before.

BELIEVE.