Friday, October 17, 2008

Waking up ...

The past few mornings, since returning to Karatu, I have felt as if I was waking up from a terrible dream.

It hasn’t even been a week, and yet my brain is playing tricks on me. It seems so long ago.

I have been thinking a lot over the past few days. About the recent events. What they mean. How to move forward.

Despite the pain and grief, what is there to learn from what happened? What can this experience teach me? How can I honor this little boy’s short life?

His brief time on this earth has illuminated parts of me that I didn’t know existed; and parts of me I had been ignoring for some time.

Everyone faces pain in their lives. I truly believe that we are shaped, not by the painful event, but by the way in which we internalize the pain and allow it to affect our lives.

If you had told me before I left the U.S. that I would loose this baby, I would have said you were crazy, that I couldn’t survive an experience like that, and therefore, wouldn’t do it.

But I am surviving. I have no choice.

I am trying to honor the experience for what it is and search for the meaning in it. If there is something to learn, perhaps I am not the only one for whom the lesson is meant.

It was shear luck or chance that this baby was born in a country where “hospitals” don’t have the ability to intubate a child in respiratory arrest. What makes babies in first world countries more deserving of life saving medical care?

Nothing.

1 comment:

Katzenivy said...

Meredith, About 9 people out of the GMAG are meeting tomorrow (Sunday 10/19) to discuss military matters. We support deployed military, veterans and their families. I have prepared a card for all of us to sign and send to your parents in regard to the family's loss. You and they are in our prayers, Jenna Klopovic