My Journey: From Stephen's Point of View

In talking with son Stephen this week, he agreed to be my guest blogger for this post.

Stephen, four at the time Allison died, is now thirty-one with a beautiful family of his own.

Here’s a little background to accompany Stephen’s thoughts. When Elizabeth was born, she had trouble breathing. Joy hemorrhaged just after the delivery and had to be rushed to surgery. They were in Minnesota and I was is Georgia. I had just hurt my shoulder and couldn’t pick up a jug of milk, much less two-year-old Aaron. It was a frightening time for all of us. Elizabeth was in the hospital several times that first year of her life, but she’s quite a little fighter. Today they are living in southern Nigeria as house parents at a school that began this year.

From Stephen:
I don't remember much. I remember being sad, but that's about it. When I was reading your posts it made me think about my kids' births, especially Elizabeth. Realizing how close I was to loosing her or Joy. I couldn't even imagine what that would have felt like.

When they took Elizabeth from me and rushed her off to a room and then kicked me out of the room where Joy was, sitting in the waiting room by myself, not knowing what my future was going to hold, wondering how I was going to tell Aaron, as I processed through several different emotions at one time - being mad at God, sad at the point that I might loose one or the other. The three hours that I sat in the waiting room seemed like an eternity.

Then the doctor finally came in and explained what happened to Joy and said that she was in recovery. The next question I had was how was my daughter. They said that she was fine too. They took me down to see Joy for a minute. I told her I loved her. And then went back to the room and they brought Elizabeth to me. I held her for hours and cried tears of joy that both of the women in my life were going to be ok. I don't think I put her down until the next morning. The nurses kept trying to come and take her and convince me to sleep, but I just needed to hold onto her.

The next morning Joy came in. Seeing her brought tears to my eyes again. Laying in the little hospital bed holding the two of them, continuing to thank God over and over again for not taking them.

One month later all the emotions and fears of loosing Elizabeth came back when we rushed her to the hospital. I remember crying to God, asking why He is putting me through this again. God spoke to me and said to trust Him. Everything was going to be ok. And then having to go through all those same emotions two more times was more than I thought I could bear.

Looking back now asking God again what was the purpose for that? At this point I don't have an answer, but I know and trust Him that it was for a good reason. I hope that what I went through can someday benefit somebody. As I'm lying here in my bed, holding Elizabeth in one hand and talking while I dictate to Joy I'm happy to have them in my life. I'm lying here trying to figure out how all this relates to Allison. The only thing I can think of is that hopefully someday my story will help somebody, like yours is helping other people.