A side note

I know I have been taking my time to write. The truth is, I feel like I've reached a road-block so to speak. It hasn't been easy to organise all my thoughts and feelings to express myself in a way that I hope to be 'heard'. I hope you understand. There's so much I can and wish to share, but at the same time I feel the need to keep some things private, and all the while I'm trying to be careful as to not subconsciously offend anyone with what I share here - the facts, my thoughts and my take on things. I guess mostly I just feel very vulnerable. 

One of the very first things that happened to me at the very beginning of this painful and scary journey was that I became overcome with a sense of guilt. Guilt for not having been more compassionate towards others whom I've witnessed suffer in the past; guilt for having overlooked the fact that there may be people I know going through hardships and how I may not have extended my hand and my heart when they needed the most. 

More specifically, I began to recall the many friends and relatives who've lost a parent or another family member, the friends who've lost their five year old daughter on an automobile accident, the friends who lost their three month old newborn son to SIDS, the friends who've watched, fought, and prayed for the life of their premature daughter whom the Lord eventually took to be with Him after two months, the friend who struggled with cancer for nearly ten years before going 'home'...I can't help but think about how fragile they were when going through what they've faced, the vulnerability that has probably caused them to take cover at times, in place of facing each day and, more importantly, people in general.

I guess it's true that it takes a certain amount of hardship to really understand the pain of your brethren and honestly empathise. I am certainly not saying that I am 'there' but that I feel I may be on my way. Then, just this month we hear the news of the tragic death of the son of Rick Warren - the well known pastor of Saddleback Community Church and the author of A Purpose Driven Life - and I came across this article that very much touches on the subject of vulnerability in the face of trials. 

Here is the article (which you can read in full if you hover over and click on the title) along with an excerpt from it which I would like to highlight: 

Rick Warren's Grief: The Comfort and Cruelty of Speculating on Suicide by Kristen Howerton:

I was devastated to hear the news of Rick Warren's son, who took his own life on Friday after a lifetime of battling serious mental illness. 

Unfortunately, over the past 24 hours I've seen both individuals and news outlets posting speculations about Rick Warren, his son and their relationship, with what I perceive to be an attempt at figuring out what went wrong. People seem to want to assign blame to something or someone -- to unlock some mystery that would explain Matthew's suicide.

When we hear about grieving parents it can be so tempting to try to assign blame, because if they aren't to blame, then we have to grapple with the reality that sometimes, tragedy is senseless. This is an uncomfortable truth: awful things happen to children that parents cannot prevent. It's a truth so painful that we would rather throw grieving parents under the bus than face it. 

I think this is an awful but real human impulse -- we want to find a way to exclude the possibility that something bad could befall our children. I will admit here that I'm not immune to this impulse. When something horrific happens to another child, I find myself quickly cataloging the details, trying to find something that would make the tragedy exceptional -- some slip-up that the grieving parent made along the way that would comfort me from a concern that it could happen to me. I've done it when I've heard about infant death: I've scrambled to figure out if the parent was doing something wrong. Was there some rule they failed to follow that would assuage my anxiety about my own child's mortality? I found myself doing this as I watched the Sandusky trial as well -- quickly casting aspersions on parents of the victims for their lack of discernment.

I've been going back and forth between writing this post along with another draft of just the continuation of our 'current story'. In the end, I felt I needed to clear my mind first to really come across as genuine as I can when sharing this journey with whoever is reading and following. I am in no way assuming that those who visit this blog will turn against me. My main point is that the more I try to make  sense of the reality that our family is facing these days, the more vulnerable I feel...on the one hand I desperately want to reach out and ask for support, but on the other hand I fear that in doing so I will expose my wounds to greater hurt.

As a woman and a parent, I personally am quite sensitive to what I can handle seeing or even reading.  So if I do not include details of our experience please understand that I am simply protecting our privacy as well as protecting myself and others from unecessary burden and heartbreak. At the same time, I am only human and sometimes I may slip up and disappoint. Either way, I hope you continue to read with a grain of salt. Whatever I may or may not share, I hope you understand...