This Thanksgiving season marks 10 years.

Ten years of coping with FA.

If you know us, you’ve likely heard the story before that this is the very week that we received the news from Sam’s neurologist that our worst fears were realized, when she called me one evening with positive test results.  I’ll never forget that call and her reluctant words to me.

“Hello, this is Dr. Parke.”….. *deep sigh*….. “Mrs Brown, I am so sorry……..”

That was all I needed to hear; all that my mind remembered and registered in that horrible moment.  I slowly pulled over the car in the cold rain, and listened to her lament over having to give test results over the phone, and what our next steps would be. I sobbed as I was just trying to catch my breath from the punch in the gut that I had just received.

Our church was having a family Thanksgiving communion service that night.  I absolutely did not want to attend but knew I needed to, and knew the kids needed to go. We had to maintain some sense of normalcy and I didn’t want to cave into my emotions in front of the children.  I just felt overwhelmed with dread and sadness, mixed in with feelings of shock and numbness.

Our world was spinning and crumbling.

Later that evening, I had to excuse myself out into the foyer because I could not quit crying and could not make my heart participate in the service. However, I remembered next the Lord clearly speaking to my heart, reminding me the entire reason I was there for communion was because He gave His Son for mine; Christ’s life for Sam’s – and now I was faced with the choice of giving my son back to Him.  After all, the cross proved not only His love, but it proved to just what length He went to, in order for us to have life and hope.

Sam had hope.  Would I walk in that?

Basically I was being posed with a major choice at this crossroads – I could either trust Sam back into His care, or I could grab the reigns and continue in my own strength facing down this giant. I envisioned in my mind a handing over of sorts to Him; a releasing and removing of my grip that was locked so tightly around Sam.

Ten years later, the choice for us still remained the same, though the landscape looked a bit different.

I used to dread Thanksgiving for many years, just because the trauma and gravity of what those test results meant to us – it was like a painful wound being reopened each fall.

So, here we are.  We made it through our first Thanksgiving without Sam. And can I say without guilt – that overall, it’s not been as hard of a day as what I had anticipated? The wound is still there, but it’s not as painful as it once was.

Is it ok to say that I enjoyed the day? That I was able to relax in the hot tub after lunch with my sisters and not feel guilt ridden because I knew Sam was in the living room waiting impatiently to go back home? Or worried that his butt was probably hurting from sitting and feeling so terrible enjoying the hot water and movement and conversing – even though I knew he couldn’t? Or knowing for him to participate it would’ve required 3 people and 30 minutes to get him out of his chair, changed into trunks and hoisted over into the hot tub to last only 10 minutes in the water, then spend another 30 getting him warmed back up and dressed back into dry clothes, utterly exhausted from the activity?

Confession: I’ve come to realize that though I miss him indescribably, I do not miss living and coping with FA.

And I say that respectfully yet unapologetically.

It’s been quite the adjustment back into ‘normal’ life.  Normal in that we don’t have to count carbs for every cracker, plate of pasta, or granola bar eaten; I can tarry after work in Walmart and feel like I have time to shop and think.  It has been so very strange to say “yes” to friends for weekend plans or a dinner invite to a restaurant. I no longer have to eyeball every open handicapped parking place at stores or study the ease of entrances into buildings or homes.  I don’t hoard straws anymore because I know he needs them for his Yetis. (McAllister’s Deli had the best ones for Sam because of their long length.)

It’s quite the life that the majority of society leads, let me tell you. It felt like living on an entirely new planet at first.

It has been such an up and down process of slowly ‘erasing’ him from our lives, but it’s been a necessary one.  I know that likely sounds cold and unfeeling, but you hopefully get what I mean. For instance, Wade and I moved back into his bedroom about 6 weeks ago.  While the first night in it was excruciating, I do feel like it’s been transformed into a calming, bright, and inviting space now – and I have fake flowers and lace that have landed on just about every piece of furniture in it.

I look at the room and our lives as slowly reclaiming it all back from FA – not from Sam.

I’m reminding myself on the hard days – when the emotions just build and tears threaten to spill out – it’s OK and even necessary for us to allow them to be released.  Healing has to happen, and goodness – it’s only been less than 4 months from such a devastating and altering loss.  A cold hard truth I’ve found about loss, however:  in our world today, it’s never a ‘convenient’ time to cry.  Never.

Daily grace is needed not just from heaven, but from each other and most importantly, from within.

About 2 weeks ago, his headstone was finally set.  Wade and I actually had started the process of designing and paying for it last summer.  Of course, we never told Sam about what we were doing.  (I’ve found it ironic that while we’ve had an entire decade to prepare ourselves for this event – barring a medical miracle – it’s been near impossible navigating our way through his passing. ) We both could see the progression and decline that was ever so slowly taking place in his body, and knew this would just be one more decision and task out of the way.  A long time patient – now transformed into a forever friend – captured the vision that I had in my heart and mind and drew out the sketch for his headstone.  I realized that every person who would potentially come to visit his grave – especially me – must be reminded of his reality and the hope that Christ promises through His word.  We had Jeremiah 29:11 placed on it – for it was THE verse that God undeniably breathed into our lives months before Sam’s FA was confirmed. (Ask me about the carwash if you think about it.)

A visual reminder and soul comfort for the tough moments that the cemetery often requires.

The plans, the hope, and the future – have been brought to their fruition for Sam.  Jesus keeps His promises, does He not??

While the stone is beautiful, stately, and representative of soooo much – it is still so incredibly hard to look at it, for it means this chapter of our lives is closed. I can barely translate the finality of his loss most days – so I choose not to dwell on it too much, in order for me to function day to day.  Em reminded me the chapter is not closed – we’ve just hit the ‘pause’ button.  I like that.

About a month ago, Liz sent me the following story that I’ll share, for it is wonderful and so poignant:

“I am standing on the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, “There – she is gone!”

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me – not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There – she is gone!”- there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!!!”

And that is dying. ”

~ Henry Van Dyke

It’s always been about perspective.