Atlas weeps

Amid all the worries and stresses and tensions in my own life, and all the relationship problems that seem to be plaguing the lives of my friends right now, I got an update from my mother.

Over the weekend, our Children’s Ministries director… no…

Over the weekend, a bright shining humble servant of God named Niki was rushed to the hospital. To paraphrase the information I have at this point, she is suffering from essentially systemic staph infection. Thats not perfectly correct, but if the statement instills a sudden image of horror or panic, it is appropriate.

Niki is a very slight woman, but if she’s not physically hearty, she is hearty of spirit, and she pours herself out all week long to provide spiritual direction for some hundred children at our church. She and her husband, Shannon, have a young daughter of their own named Hadley.

This Saturday, Shannon’s grandfather died. Shannon as well as all of his family, and many others in their extended family and friends, were very fond of the grandfather. So before Shannon could begin to grieve over his loss, he had to become rigidly strong to support his wife on the edge of death.

Again, the details elude me, but something about her white count or something like that was down to 1. Healthy is 12. The medical profession believes 4 is fatal, unsurvivable. She is on massive antibiotics, and like most Americans, she is dehydrated. So while pushing all these drugs and fluids, the infection caused her kidneys to fail.

We presented a drama in church on Sunday. It was about complacency in the church, and it had been scheduled for months. The rest of our service was essentially a prayer service. It was lead by our Worship pastor, because our senior pastor was out of town where his wife’s father was passing away. Another family in our church took a family member off the respirator, and the family member passed quickly and without further suffering.

Niki responded well to prayer and initial treatments on Sunday and Monday. Sunday night, the doctors, who still weren’t certain of her illness or how to treat it – and were asking our church to pray for them for wisdom in treatment – said that she was looking at 12 weeks of I.V. drugs, then another 12 months of drug therapy, and rehabilitation. The effort is to keep the infection from settling into her organs, and to irradicate it completely from her system.

Monday, word came that her kidneys had come back online, and she had recovered much of her spirits, and that visitors should remember that she would try to entertain her guests, and not tax her new weak strength. Then we learned that her liver was now failing, and that to give it a break, the doctors would have to cut back on many of the drugs that gave her comfort. But, this was considered “in due course” and only a “slight” setback considering the whole scope and danger of her condition.

So this evening, I receive an update from my mom, that Niki’s family had all been recalled. Her condition is worsening abruptly, and our church’s prayer chain was being asked to recruit ALL people willing to pray for her sustainance and recovery.

And all day today I’ve tried very hard to pull together all the diverse projects being demanded of me this specific day. To deal with the difficulties of having our secretary go home sick the day before the First Lady comes to our town to read to children and inaugurate our new library – a project my company is closely involved in. My boss is also a lobbyist, and he has been stressed with the pressures of trying to find more money for out agency, as well as visiting dignitaries, and his own oversite position of all my and my department’s current projects. And, I feel as if I may be coming down with this same flu thats going around, this when I am in the infancy of my recovery from Seasonal Depression, when my own reserve strengths are small.

And I’ve tried very hard at all that today, and sincere in my affection and concern for my friends, and sympathy for the ill-wroght conflicts in their relationships…. but I found myself in one moment saying “do I really give a fuck?” and “how can people do these things to each other” and “how can people let themselves get caught up in the trivialities of who said what to whom” when there is a precious little girl of a woman dying for no cause to herself, in the very helpless arms of those who love her.

And I find that I am angry, and sympathetic, but mostly just really angry at the petty people in the world who cause petty problems in the lives of people who they claim to love. And frustrated that the people affected chose to play that game again and again instead of reaching through it or getting out of it. But mostly….

but mostly….

mostly I am mad that a dear mother lies so close to death, and in my world, I feel like I am the only one who feels it is important. That I am the only one who sees how puny the rest of these problems are. Who wants to say to the antagonists in the lives of my friends, “if you wouldn’t be at your partner’s bedside, clinging desperately to them and to God and to all that is precious, then why would you wait until they are on the edge of death to do it? Why do you cause them pain and rancor now, while you are all so healthy and free?”

If you cant love them to death while they are alive, then quit pretending you care about them at all.

There is an entire family, maybe an entire church on their knees around one person.

I’m on the verge of crying, striking out, screaming on the behalf of the world, of my friends, of one friend. I just needed to vent that.

A girl may die tonight. A mother may die tonight. A daughter may die tonight. A wife may die tonight.

How will you treat your significant other in the morning?

More importantly, how will you treat them next week? Next year?

Stop pretending. Do, or do not. There is no try.