What Does It Look Like To Choose Abundance Over Pain?
Lessons from Donut Day in the Children’s Hospital activities room.
One year ago this week, I was living out of a Children’s hospital room in Boston, as my 7-year-old son recovered from open heart surgery. The physical recovery was shockingly swift. He went from the Intensive Care Unit, to taking a few steps, to playing video games with Dad in bed, to discharge in a week. We were home well in time for Christmas.
One morning after Griffin had been moved to the floor (chest tubes had come out and he was progressing well) we walked down the hall to the activities room. Word on the floor was that they had fresh donuts for the kids. I remember the view out the window of the activities room was breathtaking; you could see the city, the sky was blue and we were admiring it when a little boy came in on a trike. Kids with serious heart disease often ride trikes or hot wheels around the wings of the hospital because walking wears them out. Wheels allow them to be mobile and have some independence. I turned to look at the little boy and was hit with a wave of recognition: I knew him.
Well, “knew” is a stretch. I knew of his family from the Ethan M. Lindberg Foundation, the nonprofit that had supported us back when we first stepped into the scary world of pediatric cardiology. We had been supporting the Foundation ever since and I had seen photos of this little boy, Dean, online. Dean was chatting happily with the staff and his mom stood closeby. Should I say something to the mom? It might feel weird to her, like Internet stalking. “How the heck did I know her kid?” she’d wonder.
But perhaps the reason I didn’t engage with Dean’s mom, Janet, was because the stark difference between Dean and Griffin was apparent, and, truthfully, I didn’t know how to handle it right then. Leaving the hospital was in sight for us. It was not for Dean. He had been living there for a long, long time.
Griffin watched Dean for a minute and then turned to look at me. His eyes said so much. He was taking in the fact that Dean was sick, that his heart was not doing well. He was admiring how cute Dean was in his Heart Strong shirt that Griffin had back in his room too. He was reckoning with the really hard truth that some kids with heart disease (his kind of disease) don’t get to go back home. He was wondering what that meant for him and his future.
I saw all of this in Griffin’s eyes.
I decided not to introduce myself to Janet. It would have been a bit self-serving and she didn’t need another stranger’s pity, even though I’m a stranger who gets it a little bit better than most. We both left the activities room that morning and Dean’s presence has stayed with me ever since.
I knew we were lucky to have such a short hospital stay without major complications, but after that morning it felt like a heavy privilege. I was deeply grateful for the way Griffin was recovering, but my heart felt torn in two for the many families who had to stay there, no end in sight. I’ve held these conflicting thoughts since the first year of Griffin’s life. At times my mind ping pongs from: I’m furious Griffin has to deal with this lifelong disease to We are so fortunate to have made it this far without lengthy hospital stays and complications to Why should other families have to bear so much pain and suffering while we go back to daily life?
This broken record is not serving me and it’s not serving the other heart families either. When we grasp like this and hold tight to our suffering, it perpetuates. I wonder if letting go will mean that I care less or that I can’t see the burden of congenital heart disease. But letting go means that I can choose something else. I can choose to see the love of life emanating from Dean and I can choose to see Griffin’s courage in the face of adversity.
I can carry these thoughts instead. I can set the pain free rather than wrapping my arms around it and not giving myself any room to breathe new air. I can choose abundance over attachment to pain. I can sit with the swell in my chest that I have Griffin here in my home, upstairs asleep in bed right this minute, while other heart moms have an empty room in their house that their child did not come home to. I can acknowledge the discomfort of this feeling and then let grace take over. I can send love out to the heart moms that have lost their kids and all the other people I know who are grieving and then give that love back to myself too. I can rest in the comfort that love can be stronger than the pain.
