Sabitlenmiş Tweet
If you met me in real life, you would feel comfortable taking shots at me within minutes. It is my superpower and I cannot explain it. Maybe it is because I always have a smile on my face, who knows, but I love that I can put people at ease so quickly that a smart alec comment will be fired at me in record time.
What you wouldn’t know. Is that in 2019 my wife went through breast cancer. She is the strongest person I know. Mom to our three boys and caregiver to oldest son, who was born severely disabled. He was never able to to do the little things we take for granted. He never said a word and could only communicate by laughing or crying. He had no balance, was never able to even sit up on his own. Fine motor skills were shot, so he couldn’t use his hands. He had seizures daily, micro fractures in his bones, and spent far to much time in the hospital, always with my wife by his side.
A surgery to install a G-tube was scheduled a month after my wife’s double mastectomy. For really the first time I had to take off work and be the one at his side. I was unbelievably fortunate to have a boss that would move heaven and earth for me. The tube pulled out due to his organ’s unusual behavior and they went back in to correct it. His lung collapsed and he got pneumonia. I was with him two weeks before a doctor came in one morning and said that this would take his life. I was stunned. The thought that he wouldn’t rebound never crossed my mind. We went home on hospice, and I had to tell his two younger brothers that they should make sure to hug him and tell him they love him each night before bed. It was the longest week of my life. He was 23 when he went home and left us here to face our lives without him.
When we were at the funeral home I asked if there would be any problems getting everyone inside. The funeral director assured me that there was plenty of room, that they had over flow rooms but had only had to use them a few times. They used them for my son.
I am a hugger and I about hugged myself out that day, but I will forever be grateful that people cared enough to be there for us in our most painful time of need.
His brothers were 13 and 15 at the time. In two months they had gone through their moms cancer and their brother dying and I worried about them nonstop. They are great kids though and their brother helped mold them into empathetic and caring young men. Heck, he had the same impact on me.
So how can I still be an optimist, still have a smile on my face almost every single day? I can tell you it is only because I have faith. I know Jesus Christ and I know that one day I will see my son again, whole and no longer in pain. I look forward to that as much as anything in the world, but not until I am done here. I have two other sons to be here for and because of Gods Grace I still have my wife and my boys have their mom.
I am not perfect by any means, and I worry that some of the things I say on X may come off as not caring or mean. That really isn’t who I am. Just know that I can be passionate about something we may disagree on, but still love the person on the wrong side of the argument. (See what I did there?)
Thank you for taking the time to read this. As much as I want to, I cannot remove my anonymity, I would be fired super fast from my liberal company, but I still wanted to give my testimony and share a bit about myself.
English
