on being in the muck...

(a re-post from Facebook)

I've spent my day tending to a sick (but slowly recovering) Moriah. She has the flu; no pneumonia (we did a chest X-ray today to be sure). Her fever has broken. I'm so grateful to have had this day with her; she was surprisingly sunny for a girl so sick. She will stay home again tomorrow, too, as she works to fend off this flu.

The truth is this morning I woke up after only a couple hours of sleep feeling a bit sorry for myself. There are lots of things that help me when I feel this way. One is gratitude, and when I woke up on Moriah's floor this morning feeling that bit of self-pity, I looked into her sleeping face and decided to give a lot of thanks for her little life, which is challenged so often. My thanks was suddenly crystal clear: Thank you, God, that she is here. Thank you.

And here's a less spiritual and less high-minded mind trick that works, too: I often turn my attention to folks who are in this muck with me. I spent a very busy day changing pants and Pull-Ups and driving to and from X-ray and attending to a needy girl. But part of the busyness of my day was also the texts and phone calls and voice mails I received. One friend whose son has special needs who was also trekking to a hospital today for tests, and will go back tomorrow for more. Another who cares for her son at home, day in and day out, and messaged me on Facebook. Another who I reached by phone, whose kids with special needs are all sick and all on antibiotics, who was also up a lot of the night last night.

And, of course, Eddie. Our bone marrow transplant friend Eddie. His mom and I have texted back and forth a lot today, and the news has not been good. Eddie has been in the ICU again this past week, and he is in seriously declining health, and he needs a double lung transplant, and soon. Today brought more difficult and painful news--the kind of news that makes a mom's heart almost physically rip in two--and I cried on and off through the day with Eddie's mom today, and prayed for her, and for him.

If you need perspective on your life, friends--if you want to be convinced that you are not being singled out for suffering, or difficulty, or sadness--I'd suggest you befriend a family with special needs near you. Because walking through life with others who are sick, and disabled, and struggling...this is some of the best spiritual medicine I know. It's not a magic bullet. It's life-with. You look up and realize you are surrounded by folks who are in the muck with you, and this does something to your heart, to turn your attention from the muck to the people stuck there with you.

We can't do much about the muck, you and I. We can look up, though, see that we are not alone, find comfort in our community of muck-ers, and pass along to one another what we know about life-as-muckiness.

This is friendship. So to all my dear friends who texted and called and Facebooked me today--to all whose kids are also sick and struggling, fighting for their lives or living with disabilities--thank you for saving me from my pity party today. I wouldn't survive the muck without you. I owe you my sanity, and by that I mean, my life.