The Way We Were

I found myself driving alone one recent evening in the vicinity of the hospital where Jacob resided each of his 44 days. I diverted from my path home and pulled my car into the parking lot of the hospital. I found an odd comfort there as I parked car in the same lot I had become so accustomed to. I looked up at the window just outside what had been his room for almost two months. Although I had only spent less than two months in this place, it seemed eerily familiar and in that way, soothing.

I thought for sure I might shed a few tears as I sat in my car for those moments in the parking lot while some of the memories began to flow. I did not. The searing flashbacks of our sudden crisis late in the evening of April 9, 2016; the gravity of having my only son born under extreme duress; my heart torn in two as I concerned myself with my wife and our premature baby in the same moment. All of these thoughts were somehow set aside by the calm view from outside the hospital window on that evening.

For any number of reasons, I tend to find comfort in memories of events of the past. They are known commodities and therefore familiar and relatable. Here, the tragedy gives way to this sort of comfort. So often I had pulled into that same parking lot during those 44 days in a mad rush to get up to see Jacob and to get the latest news and progress reports. So many times I knew the reports might be bad; really bad. And yet I bounded up the stairs or dashed into the elevator as if into the fray once more, living out Treloar’s poem.

Now in this moment, alone in the cold and dark and quiet parking lot, I have time to reflect on the way we were. Back then there was no time to think. We could only react. There was no plan, no schedule, no scheme, no plot. There was only the heightened  curiosity of parents seeking information on what has happened in the last few minutes, and the information that would give hope of even a few minutes more. That window, on the third floor, outside room 3003, oddly beckoned me that night. Countless times I stared up at that window as a walked briskly (or ran) through the parking lot thinking “Here I come, Jacob!” Countless times I stood by that window on the third floor speaking frankly with doctors and nurses about things no parent should ever have to talk about. That window stood next to the door whose threshold I sometimes feared to cross, knowing that the prognosis that hour was unknown. I had no idea if I would hear a report from the staff that Jacob experienced a setback, or a report that he was successfully making healthy advances in development.

The angst, fear, stress and anxiety is now gone. The way we are is no longer the way we were. I look at this window now and recall these memories in a more pleasant manner. The rough edges of these events are worn smooth and the hectic rush is merely a fog. I mentioned earlier that I expected to sit in my car that night and sob. I was surprised that I didn’t. Whether I wasn’t in the mood to be sad at the moment, or whether I had finally reached the point of acceptance, I am not sure. The feeling was not merely dull, but instead peaceful.

Rather than look Heavenward and ask “Why?”, I said a small prayer of thanksgiving for the relief and for the plan that has been set in place which I cannot see. I accepted this quiet moment, alone in a dark parking lot, as the gift it was; a gift of some measure of peace. I am better for having realized the opportunity and having seized it that night.