Interesting question right? Some people lash out hatefully & meanly. Saying horrible things about others. Some people hide in a hole and say or do nothing at all. Some people passively strike back & you don’t even know you were hit. Some people vent on their own (semi?) public blog. We all have ways of dealing with adversities when they come our way. Some are good, some are bad. Hopefully we think twice before attacking someones character or saying something we might regret. The important thing to remember is we all have our ways & only YOU know what is right & wrong in your heart & soul. May God guide your spirit so you always respond in LOVE.

There was a little thing called adversity that struck my family. Some of the story is blogged on My Dear Daughter page if you haven’t seen it. Our family dealt with the death of not one child but two. Divorce also struck our family(and that’s another story). And it is just as terrible but it IS a choice. You CHOOSE to love & work through it. Or you CHOOSE not(or your abusive spouse CHOOSES not to change and you CHOOSE not to stay). You CHOOSE to no longer be part of that life. And again that is how YOU deal with it in your own personal way. Death however is not a choice. When it happens to an infant baby there is nothing to compare that to. There is no grading curve. So what do we choose to do with it? Well we could be angry! The whys & the unfair & the how dare! We could end up the victim & turn our bitterness on others. Or we could dream & do what we were called to do.

My sister the mother of those two precious babies was tested greatly. If you think the test was only through the grief you would be wrong. The first WAS the utter loss. The complete total breaking down of losing a loved one that you carried inside for 9mos. And held for a short seven days in your arms. The second test was the birth of another boy that was chronically ill as well(after you were told the first baby’s illness was NOT genetic). So to have ANOTHER baby and it be ill as well. It was heart breaking. We all know how hard it is to see our children sick. IMAGINE living in a hospital 90% of the time. Leaving the rest of the family at home. Missing your healthy little boy & girl who needed you too. How do you choose? When the baby did come home it was not peaceful. The constant de-sanitizing so he wouldn’t catch a bug. The acting as nurse because SHE was the only one who knew all the tubes & medicines & times he needed them. Feeding him through a tube, draining his shunt, suctioning his trachea, setting your alarm four times a night for his food & medicine. But the love was there too, lovingly touching his cheek, signing I love you & him signing back. His smiles. The way he wiggled when she walked in the room & touched him. And STILL losing him after working so hard for four & half years to keep him as healthy as she possibly could. No cure, no miracles just a lot of hard work & the terrible , terrible loss (again). How unfair!

And what came out of that adversity? Anger? Depression? No. A dream. A dream to be a nurse. A calling from the stairwell of the hospital where her baby son lay hooked up to machines to keep him alive. A calling to be a nurse. Not to be just any nurse. But the BEST nurse. My sister had no idea how she was going to do that but it was at that moment that it was implanted in her soul. The dream did not die when Cody did. It only grew in stature & hope. The last battle was actually making it through nursing school. PASSING & FINALLY fifteen years later. FIFTEEN! She completed the task God set her to do. My sister earned her RN license July 2, 2009 at 46 years of age.

Don’t ask me how she did it. I don’t even think she knows. But when she gave her speech at the pinning ceremony for her nursing class, I remember what she told them. “Don’t just be any nurse be the BEST nurse you can be. If that comatose patient has lost their blanket cover them up again. If that baby in the crib can’t tell you to shut the blinds when the sun is bright on their little face. Shut them anyway. Be compassionate & caring of the patients whether they know it or not.” It was an amazing moment to see the last 15yrs come full circle to this achievement. To really witness the shaping & changing God did in her life to get her to this place. A soul deep accomplishment.

How did she face adversity? Head on & conquered no matter how long it took. With hope & love & a spirit of good. A passion inside her that turned something so horrific, something that would have broken so many people & caused them to lash out, to something soooo soooo very good & honorable.

What did you do with your adversity?

Our country became Independent. My sister became a children’s hospital nurse.

Happy Independence Day!

And to my sister. I love you. I am so proud of you. One day I will write your ENTIRE story. One day people will know a lot of who I am is because I had you to look up to.