Good things Go

 

The family with Samuel in the hospital after surgery

     The other day I was listening to a song by Linkin Park and began to weep at a lyric: “Sometimes bad things take the place where good things go.”

    It’s been a while since my last post. Over the past year, we’ve watched Samuel continue to decline. We’ve spent literal months in the hospital and had brief moments of hope, only to have them dashed again by despair.  While we continue to fight for our son every day, we recognize it’s a ticking clock we are fighting against.

     Our most recent hospital trip was to the operating room so Samuel could get a feeding tube surgically inserted into his stomach. This feeding tube is necessary because he no longer has the capability of ingesting enough nutrition or medicine orally, and therefore is entirely reliant on the tube for sustenance.

     Before we went to the hospital to have this surgery done, my wife laid Samuel down, and kissed his belly, knowing it was the last time she would see this belly without a tube sticking out of it. Later at the hospital, as I let my son go and watched him get wheeled into the operating room, I came undone. I wept in the waiting room knowing a bad thing was about to take the place where a good thing is supposed to go.

     Life, however, doesn't stop for our grief. We brought Samuel home, attempted to learn our new routine, and tried our best to keep showing up for the rest of our family. A few weeks later, my other kids did an “end of year showcase” where they performed and showed various things they had learned throughout the year to their families in the audience. My other kids did so well and it was a joy to see them. At one point, however, the 11-year old kids got up to perform a Bachata dance they had rehearsed. They all did great, but my wife and I both felt a tinge of sorrow as we looked at our 11-year old son. Instead of being on stage with the other kids, he was in the audience, hooked up to a feeding bag with a tube going into his stomach, drooling. 

Despite all this grief and hardship, I am not unhappy with my circumstances. There is a special kind of Joy that is born from sorrow, and throughout all these difficult days, we have been overwhelmed by support. My wife, our parents, family, friends, acquaintances, and even people we’ve never met or spoken to, have reached out in various ways to offer whatever support they can. Every time I speak to my dad, he reminds me that he prays every day, out loud and by name, for Samuel, me, and my wife. Most of all, I feel the support of a loving Father in Heaven, and his Son, my Savior, Jesus, who are always beside me.

I weep when I hear the lyrics to that Linkin Park song as I think about all the good things we’ve seen go from Samuel. But I rejoice as I think about the lyrics right before it. And from the bottom of my heart, I can joyfully repeat them to my friends, family, my wife, my Savior, and to you. 

Thank you for always standing by me even though… sometimes bad things take the place where good things go.