Turning it off

If you’re the parent of a healthy child, I completely understand being unable to process our story. Until exactly five days ago that was me too. It’s too hard to contemplate how quickly, without your permission, completely out of your control, the universe can hurt a child. It’s easier to understand accidents – losing a child to a drunk driver is still horrific to be sure, but you can identify the cause, point a finger at the responsible party, maybe even prevent it from happening or find some sort of justice – but cancer? It’s what we sometimes call an act of God, but for many of us it’s too hard to comprehend a God cruel enough to inflict such pain on the purely innocent.

So I’m still there with you. 23 hours a day the little part of my brain that can step outside the nightmare is completely shut down so I can function at all, and that’s a good thing. Wesley needs us. But in quieter moments, particularly right when I awake, that part of my brain is still sleeping and I’m struck again by the horror of this tiny little genetic mutation wreaking so much invisible havoc on my beautiful golden haired little boy.

I’m writing this blog for me, and maybe for him to someday understand what we went through, but I know for many of my friends and family it’s going to be unreadable, too painful to get inside, and I want you to know: I completely understand. Turn it off if you can.