Messages from Moms: Adrienne Graves {part 4}

Today in our Messages from Moms series, Adrienne Graves tells us a little bit about how her local church supported their family, and also how strangers who love Christ cared for them. The Graves family’s experiences reminds me that the Church (with a capital C!) isn’t a building…

The Red Rocks Church family was amazing to us, and to Emily, during our time at the hospital.  I seriously was oblivious to our needs at first, but they were not.  They brought meals to us for 5 months, along with our friends and family contributing, too.  Literally.  5 months of not having to worry about “What’s for dinner?”  And, not just a drop at the front desk type of thing, but some of the people who brought meals would come and spend time with us.  Yes, it’s uncomfortable for even people we know and know us to be in a hospital setting where a baby is gravely ill, but some of those who stayed with us didn’t even know us prior to Noah’s birth.  They became our friends while we were in the hospital.  

Some people are afraid to do that…they want to give you space, don’t want to be “a bother”.  Since Em was there every day, too, she built friendships with our many visitors from church.  They’d play with her and help her feel like a kid in the midst of this big unknown.  We didn’t actually attend church but once while Noah was in the hospital, and that was the day my older sister and I got baptized, so as far as Em making connections to church members during that time, it all took place at the hospital or if members offered play dates or brought their own kids to visit her, in addition to her brother.  This was huge!

  In addition to our church body we have an amazing core group of friends with whom we do life.  They rotated visits and always brought their kiddos along so Em would know she was special, too.  Some people may not think it’s appropriate to take kids to visit at a hospital, but it’s a children’s hospital!  It’s totally appropriate, and who knows, a visiting kid might just be inspired to be a medical professional some day just because they were allowed to see inside.  Once Noah passed away we started going to church again at Red Rocks.  Em made some really solid friendships with some of the kids there, all of whom were aware of her journey.  They didn’t shun her or think she was a freak because her little brother died.  They just chased her and tackled her, swung from the trees with her, and shared their snacks.  Kid stuff.  They were just kids together.

We had actually attended and served at a different church prior to Noah’s birth and overlapped attendance at that church and Red Rocks for several months.  We had no ill feelings or anything for the former church, but just felt we were supposed to support the start up Red Rocks was doing in Colorado.  That former church literally checked out after one week…Red Rocks along with family, friends, our neighbors, and even strangers from blog world all around the globe, surrounded us and walked through all the rough patches.  A classroom of children in Korea “adopted” Noah and Emily and sent handmade pictures, artwork, and beautiful Korean treasures to our family.  Our church and a sister church in Florida collaborated, and through a tremendous gesture of generosity, Jason and Emily and I hopped on a plane for a week and got away the Spring after Noah died for some time in the sun, at the beach, Disney World, and Sea World.  To a 4 and a half year old girl who had just lost her brother, Emily thought she had won the lottery.  It was important for her to be able to have both of her parents by her side as she laughed, and saw them smile again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you, dear Adrienne, for sharing your heart!

Tune in tomorrow to meet another phenomenal mom!

Messages from Moms: Adrienne Graves {part 3}

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Today we continue  our conversation with my friend, Adrienne Graves. I admire Adrienne’s candor, and I believe it is truly a gift that God has given her…through her ability to share honestly, the rest of us can learn so much {and perhaps learn to be a little more honest about our own feelings as well.} I asked Adrienne to describe her fury with God as she watched Noah struggling to live… 

  I remember sitting out in the hallway one night at the hospital and the tears were just flowing uncontrollably.  I remember being so angry because my faith and our reality were not lining up…No one knew anything, Noah was progressively getting worse, and I remember reading a comment or hearing someone say, “Oh, God will never give you more than you can handle.”  

And that’s when I snapped.  

Literally, “F-bombs” were going off in my head left and right and in that moment, there was nothing I could do to hide them from the God of the Universe who knows everything.  I said, “God, this f-ing sucks!  No one knows anything!  Noah is dying!  This is way more than I can handle!  Do You have any idea what it’s like to lose a son?!”  

At that point I had been Christian for 20 years, but it was the first time I had ever felt such profound peace.  God said, “Actually I do…”  And, with the peace came a realization that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SECRET.  I couldn’t candy coat my feeling of disappointment with God and how this whole thing was unfolding, so I didn’t try.  I told Him in no uncertain terms that I was totally disenchanted with how He was running the Universe, specifically my world, at that moment in time.  In doing so, it wasn’t news to God.  He knew my wish list had a fairy tale ending, but He gave my heart a peace that He was still good, in spite of our circumstances, He saw a bigger picture, one more beautiful than I could comprehend, and even though we were walking our darkest nightmare, He was still good and very much in love with us, and with Noah.  

Being able to be real with God, allowing authenticity and candidness come into our conversation, if you will, was nothing different from one of the Psalmists of old.  The Psalms are cries of the heart.  Secrets revealed in words and recorded for us years later so that we could see what a real relationship with God could look like, not one candy coated with perfect behavior and religious rhetoric.  Jesus could not handle the cross.  (What, you don’t believe me?  Then why did He go back and pray the same prayer 3 times, asking God to “take this cup… Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.”)  

God does give us more than we can handle.  That’s called life on earth…a life we weren’t meant to “handle” on our own but with total surrender and trust in a good God that loves us and truly does have beauty in mind for all His creation.  

Tomorrow: We finish our conversation with Adrienne as she discusses how the local church helped her family cope with their life in the hospital and their grief after Noah’s death.

Messages from Moms: Adrienne Graves {part 2}

Happy Friday! We’re continuing our Messages from Moms series with my conversation with my friend, Adrienne Graves. Today, Adrienne begins by discussing the balancing act of managing her son’s hospitalization and care with her marriage and her responsibilities to her then-four year-old daughter, Emily.

 

 Emily had just turned 4 years old when her brother was hospitalized.  At first I wanted to keep her out of the picture, I thought in doing so it would protect her from scary things like hospitals.  Little did I know it was my own fears driving Em away from the hospital.  We had family and friends who came to town to help us but she really just wanted to be with her brother, she would say.  Finally, realizing she was in preschool and being with her brother and parents was more important, her Grandmas and Aunts would take turns each day bringing her up to the hospital.  Emily wasn’t intimidated by the hospital at all.  She would climb up into Noah’s bed, color him pictures, head down the hall for snacks out of the fridge, go say hi to the nurses and staff…let’s just say, the kid did “rounds” and everybody loved it.  As I learned the machines and Noah’s cares, I’d teach them to Emily.  We let her hold her brother.  We knew as the days wore on, it was important for her to make a heart connection with her brother, even though we knew her heart would eventually feel ache and loss when her brother died.  Jason and I literally passed the baton every night taking turns at the hospital with Noah and at home with Emily.  I’m not going to lie: being at home was nauseating to me.  During our 5 month hospitalization, being home felt wrong, but I would allow myself to “be” there, with Emily, in the moment, whether it was dancing to “Beautiful Day” by U2 or doing a puzzle, or building a fort in the basement and snuggling, I knew Emily needed to feel loved and assured because her entire world had turned upside down having a brother, more so than a healthy, thriving little brother.  I will say this: our support team of family and friends was priceless!  I know Emily went to the zoo and museum and parks with people that loved her.  I know she got to sit and do crafts and play with family and friends while I was focused on trying to figure out Noah in the day to day.  I missed out on a lot, but I don’t feel Emily missed out.

Next, Adrienne described how Noah’s hospitalization affected her marriage to her husband, Jason.

 

I can tell you this, our marriage grew deeper because we were intentional that it did.  We both realized that we were walking slightly different roads of grief because a father and son relationship is different from a mother and son relationship.  Jason and I fell in love in college and got married at 21 years of age, living on love, certainly not on our incomes.  We had already lost one child through miscarriage prior to having Emily, as well as losing Jason’s dad who was his very closest friend in 1998.  I remember looking at him and saying, “We have gone through a lot together.  We will get through this, too.  We have to be a team.”  Losing a child radically changed our perspective of what really matters in life.  We’ve both recently learned we share the same love language and that is time.  At least for us, losing a child emphasized our desire for quality time, not a need to fill our lives with stuff.  Jason’s been my very best friend since college.  I think when your hearts are both broken with the same heartache, it’s impossible not to grow closer…at least that’s how it’s worked for us.

Please join us next week when Adrienne describes how she coped with her anger with God during Noah’s illness, and also how the local church supported the Graves family.