Kelly's Korner

SHE CAN'T REMEMBER THAT

My daughter called me a few minutes ago. She had been to see her husband's twin nieces that were born Monday. Addison weighed 1 pound and 10 ounces, and Kylie weighed 1 pound and 11 ounces. She said that she had never seen anything so small. She also said that there were lines and tubes everywhere on those two little ones. They have made it for five days so far. Our prayer is that those are just the first five of many for those little ones.

As she talked to me a picture immediately flashed into my mind. It was of another baby, one that was more normal in size, but that had tubes running everywhere. She can't remember that.

It is as if my ears are still echoing the whooshing sound of the respirator that was breathing for her. I can still feel the feeling of the floor being yanked out from under me when the alarm went off, and they announced "Code Blue" in the NICU. I saw all those doctors and nurses surrounding her little body working frantically, until they shut the shades to block out the struggle with death that she was fighting. But, thankfully, she can't remember that.

I remember touching that little face with my fingers and talking gently to her, all the while watching a machine do her breathing. I remember her mother being so shocked and alarmed that she could not even cry - or pray. Those moments are forever burned into my memory by the hot iron of despair mingled with hope. But she can't remember that.

I remember a day, four years later when she took the finger of a doctor and headed off to the operating room. I don't think that she can remember that.

I remember the shock and dismay when her mother and I walked into the recovery room after the surgery and there she lay once again with tubes running everywhere. She can't remember that.

We watched this tiny little four year old as they tried to keep her lung working - the one that they had just removed about 40% of. They put in chest tubes, and took them out and replaced them, it seemed like an innumerable amount of times. She would pass out from the pain each time. I remember as clearly as the days of that forever lasting summer when we had to take hold of three chest tubes and turn her over, because they were way to heavy for her to move without our help. I don't know, but I hope that she can't remember that.

But now I remember the day, only nine months ago, when she called on the last day of her job, to say that she might need to go to the hospital, because she might be in labor. We got to the hospital a little too late to see her before they took her in to take the baby, because he was turned wrong. She did not see my anxiousness and worry. She did not feel the fact that I was actually relieved that she did not have to endure the total rigors of labor. She did not see me pacing the floor and trying not to remember all that she had gone through all those years ago. She did not see, so she can't remember that.

And now I pray that one day those little girls will have grown into women. I hope that they will look on a newborn baby in amazement, and worry over one that is having trouble. And I hope that it will be said of each one that she made it through some really bad times, but she can't remember that.