Endless Love

"The Good Word" Joshua Burnside

"I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with toothache, thinking about toothache and about lying awake.' That's true to life.  Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer, I not only life each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief." - C.S. Lewis "A Grief Observed"

   For each and every grain of sand in the universe... for every single star in the universe... that is how many times a day I think about what is happening to us.  Distractions are great - friends and family visit, watch a movie, try to focus on getting back to work - but nothing ever changes.  Like the sky overhead is always present, so is this feeling of fear and terror about what the next day could bring.

   I combat these emotions with always focusing on how thankful I am for each and every moment my wife and I have been able to spend with our babies.  She has felt them move.  She has felt them alive inside of her.  What an amazing and truly beautiful thing that must be!  I have told my wife - as crazy as it sounds at this time - sadly there are many women who wish they could know that feeling just once but cannot. It is even possible they could be envious of what we have already had to this point (I know that sounds bizarre to even consider!).

   So every minute I am awake there is this constant back and forth between the fear, the terror, the anxiety... and then the love, the gratitude and appreciation for these babies and every day we have had with them.

   And during this time I remember another quote from C.S. Lewis in his book "A Grief Observed" :

 "You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you."

   I would never compare the love any parent has for his/her child to another.  I would never compare situations because these feelings and emotions - husband to wife, parent to child - are as unique, as personal, as special as anything that exists in this world.  

   But I know this...  there is a love and a bond that has formed between my wife and I and are babies through this ordeal that goes so far above and beyond comprehension.  I could never ever put it into words... not because I lack the talent to adequately convey emotions but because these types of emotions go above comprehension.  Its just something you feel and you know in your soul.  

   I always believed what I was told about the love a parent has for their child and how incredible it is... but now - being confronted with "life and death" - I know it and feel it on a level that reaches the depths of human emotions even the greatest writers in history couldn't explain.  

   How can we sit here and face this fear and anxiety day in and day out?  

   We can face it because the gift has already been received.  It has already been delivered.  

   I love my wife endlessly.  

   And I love Savannah and Graham endlessly.  

   We are a family that has been engulfed in pure love from the very beginning.  

   Nothing can ever, ever change that.  

   Another day we are together... praying for many more....