Experience: That Most Brutal of Teachers

Dear Andy:

I’m sorry it’s been a few weeks since I last wrote you. Life has been crazy. Grandma is sick, and she’s not going to get better. She spent a week in the hospital in January and then again last month. We finally got a diagnosis of amyloidosis, which is some rare condition where your body produces a protein that it can’t process, so the stuff just builds up in vital organs. In grandma’s case, that would be her kidneys. The doctor said today that they’re functioning at about 10% and she’s in stage 5 renal failure. It’s not cancer but they’re going to treat it with chemo (which she started this week). It’s 30% successful at keeping her condition from getting worse. So… 2013 has been an unplanned barrage of hospital and specialist visits, with a crash course in dialysis starting now. Fun times.

I feel like a rubber band trying to hold everything together. Keeping track of which appointment is when, researching the info the doctors give us, relaying info to everybody, making sure grandma and grandpa understand what is going on, trying to be at all the appointments, picking up prescriptions… It’s like it never ends.

It feels like all eyes are on me to be the dependable one to keep everything together. Which is just part of it, I guess, but overwhelming nonetheless. To make things worse, you’ll never guess what I did when we were sitting in the ER at the beginning of Grandma’s most recent hospital stay: I almost called you. While we’re waiting for a room to open up so they can admit her, I thought to myself, I need to let Andy know that we’re here, picked up my phone and unlocked it before it clicked in my brain that you wouldn’t be on the other end if I had hit ‘send.’

In the past 5 years, I have not done that one single time. Have I wanted to call you? Yes. But have I ever picked up the phone and started to do it? No. Maybe it was because I was so tired. Maybe it was stress. Maybe it was because you were my rock when I needed help being strong for everyone else. My heart sank when it hit me that I was going to have to go this one alone.

Sometimes I think about the accident and wonder if it would have been any easier to lose you if I’d had time to say goodbye, like if you had ended up in the hospital or you’d had some terminal illness instead. But all I knew was how it felt to have you snatched away in an instant. Based on experience that I have recently gained, however, I can tell you it would not have been easier. I am so thankful for all the time we’ve had with grandma, but for someone to show you the hourglass and make you watch the sand run out still hurts just as much. It’s like taking all the mind-searing pain from the moment of finding out that you were gone and applying it over several months. And I have no control over the outcome of either scenario.

C.S. Lewis once said, “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” I have learned that spending every day watching the end come slowly hurts just as much as having something suddenly ripped from your hands. It is definitely a brutal teacher, and I would rather have gone my whole life without knowing either experience.

But that isn’t God’s plan. And even though it hurts, I know that His plan is perfect and that He doesn’t let us face any of our trials alone. The road ahead looks rocky, but I’m finding overwhelming peace in this version of Isaiah 41:10,13 – “Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I, your God, have a firm grip on you & I’m not letting go.”

I may not have you by my side for this battle, but I’ll make it through. The One Who sticks closer than a brother is with me, and He will help me.

I miss you a lot. Tell Jessie and Cupcake I miss them, too.

All my love,
Jenny