Just Can't Go There

Over the next few months, expect more posts relating to C's illness four years ago. I am trying to head off what happened last year, when, during the approach to the anniversary of his illness, I became extremely angry, almost debilitatingly so. I must process this in a more constructive manner. For my sake, for C's sake, for everyone's.

For the last day or so, I have been remembering reaction to C's illness, specifically the reaction of friends after the worst of it was over.

We were extremely fortunate to have the support of many family and friends during and immediately after the illness. However, there were some people - people to whom we had been quite close at one time - who somehow didn't get called or whatever during the crisis. That wasn't intentional. My brain wasn't exactly working right.

Immediately after C came home, we decided to apply our efforts to raising money for the hospital as part of a fundraising walk. Ironically, my husband and I had discussed participating prior to C's illness, but now it meant so much more to us. We took out the Christmas card list, wrote a letter about what had just happened and about the walk, and sent it out.

After the letters went out, we had many, many calls and cards of support, and significant financial contributions for the walk. It was a lovely outpouring. I'm still touched by it, and so pleased we could give back to the hospital so soon after they did so much for us. (And we continue to participate in the walk every year - more on that in May or so.)

Interestingly, we realized that there were several couples/families from whom we never heard a word. People we had been close (or closer) to. And in each case, C's illness seems to have been the catalyst to the relationship becoming a Christmas-card only relationship, in spite of later attempts at further contact by us.

It's sad, but I think I understand it.

What happened to C was beyond scary. Facing what happened means accepting the impermanence of life and how fragile it all is. It's a hard thing to think about. And thinking about it, for some people, means accepting that fragility in one's own life. I can see how one would not want to go there. The idea that a healthy, active 7 year old boy could be struck down so quickly and critically by (probably) a germ that is around us all the time...well, are you squirming in your seat thinking about it? I am.

So we have let these relationships go. It's sad, but it's okay. I respect them. Perhaps, if it I had been in their shoes, I would have reacted similarly. I don't know.

There are also a few people who think that we should be over this whole illness thing already - and have said some truly dumb things to that end. Hey, there's not one who would like to be "over" it more than me, but, as I have learned, it just doesn't work that way.

I am thankful everyday for the life and health of C, and the life and health of everyone in my family - but C's illness changed us. I remember bringing him home from the hospital, looking at the family pictures on the wall, and thinking, "Who are those people? I don't know them."

In addition to the process of recovery for C (some aspects of which took years - and some bits of which are ongoing), we had to heal as a family. We had to build a new foundation as we grieved for the innocence we lost when the code was being called in the hospital. And grief is a process. For months my husband I both cried every day. We felt fragile for so very long even as we need to be strong for our boys.

We don't dwell on this at home. I think we've done a good job of moving the kids and the family forward. It may seem like I focus on this issue all the time, but I really don't.

Clearly, I am not "over" it, much as I or others might like me to be. But like the friends with whom we have lost closeness, I respect the situation. For them to understand why it is not "over" would mean that they would have to face and understand what those weeks in the hospital and the process of C's recovery have meant.

And I don't wish that on anyone.