“No, he can’t die.”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” John 9: 3-5
“Wesson has JEB-Severe. I am so sorry”
Words I will never forget, a day I will never forget. I dropped the packet handed to us during that meeting with Wes’ team, fell to my knees from my chair and started screaming “No, he can’t die, he can’t die. This can’t be right.”
Never did we think we would lose our son. I don’t know if it was because we wouldn’t let ourselves go there, or because of his fight we saw daily, or because of the rose colored glasses I wore the 47 days leading up to this moment.
Terminal, Wes was terminal. A word you never want to hear associated with a loved one, let alone your child. These pictures were taken moments after we heard the news.
After collecting ourselves in the family room and calling our parents to deliver the news, we chose to put on a face and be as strong as we could for our little man, as we knew our days with him were numbered and he was so in tune to our emotions.
Let’s back track about one month prior to this moment. Jake and I were both extremely angry, sad and confused. Our commute to the hospital was about one hour with no traffic. Those of you who live in Houston know that most days the drive was minimum one hour. This drive became our norm expect on those “middle of the night” phone call days. Then the drive felt endless.
I can’t quite place which traumatic episode I am thinking of, as they all seem to blend together; however it was one of those morning drives after terrible news that night. If I remember correctly, this was the night the had a seizure that left Wes’ primary night nurse speechless. She said she had never seen a baby live through a seizure so convulsive. I remember yet again bawling the whole ride there. Jake’s sadness this day was a lot of anger while mine was a lot of tears, our moods seemed to eb and flow depending on the day. I will never forget Jake looking at me and saying something to the effect of, “if God is real and loves us, then why would he let this happen to our child?” As much as I wanted to disagree with him, I felt the same way and had been asking myself the same question for weeks.
How could God let this happen to our family? Why us? Two people who love and care for their children, who work hard, love hard and have all the resources necessary to give children a good upbringing, why us?
I wanted to pray, to keep giving it to God, yet I was so confused, so angry. None of this made sense. Why us?
I asked Jake if I could call the pastor that married us and baptized Ry to come up to the hospital. This would be the first time we asked for that support. Jake was indifferent, but told me, “if you think it will help you, go ahead and call him.”
I wasn’t sure what would help me. We did something we had never done before and went on a walk outside of the hospital. I remember us coming to a curb, both sitting down and tears just flowing from our eyes. Usually we took turns having bad days, but this day we both were feeling so hopeless.
I called Pastor Gene, and at the drop of a hat he was there. I still don’t know how he got there so fast. He walked into the room where Wesson and we were. The first thing he told us was, “this sucks, this is not how it is supposed to be.”
He went on to read the verse at the top of this post, this is when it all clicked. Wes being sick was NOT our fault, this was NOT God’s plan. God wasn’t punishing us, He wasn’t against us, He wasn’t not with us, He was weeping in heaven with us. Pastor explained to us that we have every right to be mad, angry, sad, asking every question, God wants you to bring it all to Him. However, this is not happening because of God, but because of sin. This is not the way it was supposed to go. He told us, but praise be to God that he can take something so terrible and make it beautiful. He explained that we may see it now, we may see it later, or we may not understand until heaven, but to always remember that God is for us, not against us.
This is the best day we had in the NICU. Jake and I both felt a relief that this is not happening because of us, or because of Wes and that God is still with us and on our side.
We have all been through or will go through trying times. We will be in a moment when we feel like, “God who?” or “Why would God let this happen to me?” In that moment I want you to think of Wes, of our pain and confusion. If you have been following his story since day one, you know that there is no denying the beauty God has brought from such pain. I want you to remember that evil, trials, sadness does not come from God. God is not choosing you and it was NOT part of His plan. This is all due to sin, and honestly we deserve nothing good to come to us. However, Jesus coming to the world to die on the cross for our sins so we can live in perfect eternity together is grace upon grace. We can rejoice in knowing that every day we wake up, is one day closer to no sadness, no sin, no evil and being reunited with those we love.
If God is for us, who can be against us? You can always rest in that assurance and hope.
