September 26, 2006

It's Fall ...I love this time of year. Cool nights, leaves blowing through the yard. Beautiful colors everywhere ...Birds busy getting ready for the winter. Change is in the air... I love it and yet it brings such pain to my heart. I remember the Fall of 2001. Seems like just yesterday. We were all looking forward to pumpkin patches, fall festivals and hay rides... then Thanksgiving would be right around the corner. Levi had been diagnosed with the brain tumor that March and was starting to show signs of deterioration. But of course, we couldn't even dare to imagine that GOD would allow us to go where we would eventually go...
September 11th we were still in Houston, Tx. getting treatment that was proving to be a horrible nightmare. Levi was gaining weight at an unbelievable rate. He was starting to have trouble breathing and fear was growing in my heart because the doctors had told us in the beginning that he would eventually suffocate... drown in his own fluids... then 9-11 happened. I remember watching it all unfold on the TV in the hotel we were staying in. I felt like the sky was falling. Jeff was supposed to be on a plane coming to ride home with us from this horrible three weeks For a while that morning I didn't know if he was on one of those planes or not. My mind was in a flurry. There were so many possibilities and they were all horribly unfathomable. So many questions... what was happening to Jeff right now? What was happening to our country? What was happening inside "little man's" body?
We had been in our own personal hell for five months with Levi's tumor and now it seemed as if the rest of the world was now being forced into our place... they could now feel what I had been feeling for five months... planes flying through my perfect life to eventually put me at ground zero. But I didn't want anyone else to have to come here. It was too devastating... I would never wish this on anyone. But it happened... I had no "say-so" in the matter...
We came home on Sept. 13th. By October Levi was stricken to a wheelchair. Everyday we could see him losing, losing, losing this battle. The tumor was killing him slowly and Jeff and I were absolutely powerless to help him. November 13th was his 5th birthday. He was almost completely paralyzed and confined to that chair. It had been so fun for him when he first got it. But now it was his prison. November 16th the fluid running from his spine to his brain was completely cut off and we had to Life Flight him to the children's hospital. Our Thanksgiving was spent there... the next three weeks were spent inside. No Fall festivals, no pumpkins... Fall was forced to give way to Winter... outside as well as in my heart. Winter used to mean cozy fires, pretty sweaters, Christmas shopping and birthdays, both my brothers and my sister and I are born in December. I always loved it. Great family times... being together, celebrating, laughing, loving... it would all be different this year. Levi died on my birthday, December 20... people were all around me... but I was all alone. The worst had happened...
... memories are so hard...
... O GOD my GOD I cry out, "Your beloved needs you now. GOD be near, calm my fear and take my doubt... your kindness is what pulls me up , your love is all that draws me in. I will lift my eyes to the maker of the mountains I can't climb I will lift my eyes to the calmer of the oceans raging wild. I will lift my eyes to the healer of the hurt I hold inside. I will lift my eyes , lift my eyes to you. God my God, let mercy sing her melody over me. And God right here all I bring is all of me, your kindness is what pulls me up and your love is all that draws me in... I will lift my eyes to the maker of the mountains I can't climb I will lift my eyes to the calmer of the oceans raging wild I will lift my eyes to the healer of the hurt I hold inside I will lift my eyes , lift my eyes to YOU... because you are and you were and you will be forever the lover I need to save me cause you fashioned the earth and you hold it together... O God hold me now... ( Bebo Norman )

Sometimes there are no answers... intellect is of no worth... you just have to fall... into HIM.

Fall...

jami