Yesterday’s Life
Night had fallen while we had been in the windowless ER, somewhere in the belly of the medical behemoth. From there, they transferred us to the intensive care unit.
Centered in the vacant sterility, Paisley lay under a dim overhead lamp, stabbed and wired in places too numerous to count. As we stared down from behind our masks, my wife tried to hold Paisley’s hands and feet still, to keep her struggles from pulling out these lifelines. Digital equipment throbbed and chimed continually. They would have snatched away the hope of sleep, had we wanted it.
I do not know a word for the futility of that place. The soul is tied by the limbs, rent and quartered. Shock and numbness mingle with the welling pressure to scream and to see everything broken. One wishes only for the quiet of home. To go back to yesterday’s life. I wanted to hold Paisley, to stand between her and the demons, and to make them take me first. Instead, you are made to stand there. You are made to feel the emptiness of your hands: a useless guardian keeping futile watch. [Read more…]
Paisley was only twelve days old, and no bigger than two upturned palms. She had that scent that belongs only to infants. Pink skin, with tiny newborn speckles on the bridge of her nose.
Paisley arrived in late January, during that time of year when the Texas air feels most out of character. She completed our quartet of children, a collated symmetry of boy, girl, boy, and girl. Being indifferent to sports but fond of cultural idiom, I dubbed her, “the final four.” She did seem to complete us as a family. But owing to events that transpired not long after her birth, she came to occupy a special place in our hearts and memories.
The near brush of death leaves upon us an indelible mark. So much more the case, when the noose of jeopardy closes upon a child. Our daughter Paisley hazarded that scaffold just twelve days after being born. This was three and a half years ago.
Every great scientific truth goes through three phases: first, people deny it. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say they’ve known it all along.
God, but there is a lot of noise out there.
My Facebook feed yesterday included a truly saddening story about a principled woman who took a courageous stand for her faith.
Jericho Brisance 