Finding Gratitude through Comparison

Finding Gratitude through Comparison
I could sit here today and relay to you all that I have been through in the past two years of my life and it would probably make you feel like maybe your life might not really be so bad. I could also sit here and tell you about some examples of suffering and loss that our fellow human beings in Haiti are going through and again you would think...well I guess I have it pretty good. But the reality is, we all have our difficulties and all we know is what we have surrounding us and what our past experiences have taught us to compare it to. I work with a 30 year old childless woman who has recently lost her husband to cancer. I myself have recently lost a child who was 81/2 years old. Then one day we had a patient come into our office, barely able to function because her 12 year old Golden Retriever who was her best friend and most loving companion passed away. Did I compare her story with mine? Yes. Did that minimize my compassion for her pain? No it did not. The comparison to my experience did, though, provide me with enough insight to know that she would be ok.
I remember times where I would be walking around the children’s hospital with my daughter laying in a bed, struggling for her life, and I would see other parents who were trying to explain to a family member on the phone that their child would never be coming home, and I would think “well it could be worse.” Then there were other times my child would be laying in a bed suffering and I would see similar events and I would think, maybe what Marina is going through is worse. Then one cold, snowy night in November, 2008, it was me making that call to my mom to tell her that her granddaughter would not be coming home, knowing that I also had to go home without my baby and break it to her brother and sister that their little Marina was gone. The day we were picking her burial site, the man who was helping us asked about our little Marina and we told him about her daily struggles with uncontrolled seizures and how the disease affected her life so immensely that she was never really able to improve, in fact it seemed to be one step forward and two steps back her entire life. The man looked at her father and me and said, “You know folks, there are worse things in life than death”. We found out then that this man had a son who also suffered from uncontrolled seizures that affected him as much as Marina, but that this man’s son was an adult and still alive. In my opinion, the saddest and most painful moment for any human being to go through is the moment that your prayers changes from pleading with God to save your child, to instead, a plea to God to just take your baby to end the suffering once and for all. If your chid was missing for example, would you not hope that instead of suffering there would be death? If your child was one of those who were buried underneath the mass destruction in Haiti, and there was no hope of ever finding him, would you not pray that the suffering would just end?
Then of course there is the guilt. How could any mother pray for the death of her child? Why could I not help my child so that death was not the better option? What did I do wrong? The most difficult part of this, for me, was that that somehow this awful mother who could not save her child and in fact even prayed for her child to die, had to not only go on with her life, but also somehow raise and try to protect her two other children.
4 months later, my youngest was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. What happened to the deal God and I had about never having to return to the children’s hospital, and the deal that we had that now that I have survived caring for one very sick child He must be able to easily promise me that I will never have to watch one my children suffer again? Where did my faith go? Right down the toilet. Until I started to hear God calling me again...
“I am sorry for your new pain, but do you realize that Diabetes can be controlled and that your daughter can live a full and happy life? There is an answer...insulin. I did not leave you; in fact, I have carried her disease all this time until you were both ready to handle it.”
So once again, I am in comparison mode which leads me to the gratitude mode.
Thank you that my child has Diabetes and that it is not Epilepsy. Thank you for all of the knowledge about food and our bodies, which gives me confidence that if anyone can survive this, we can. Thank you for allowing us to live in Canada...at least are not in Haiti...
Only through this gratitude, through this comparison, will my faith be restored.