Happy Birthday, to my beautiful blue-eyed baby! I now have three children who are in their twenties. It doesn’t seem possible.
My son whose birthday is today, is still at his university, living in an apartment with three of his best friends. We tried calling him first thing this morning, around 8 o’clock, to be his first call of today, but it went to voicemail. This certainly isn’t unusual for a college student, but in this case, my stomach starts churning wildly. This is my child who has epilepsy and he has suffered three major seizures this year, after being completely seizure free for quite a few years. My son has agreed to text me every morning at 8 a.m. after he has taken his meds, and at 8 p.m. when he has taken his nightly dose. These daily texts gives him some accountability and me, a level of security and reassurance and some peace of mind. There was no text this morning (and he rarely misses these texts, especially after his last major seizure of the year).
My son is a deep, deep sleeper and his epilepsy medicine only adds to that well of tranquility. After several calls and texts, I put a time goal, of when I would start calling his roommates to check on him. In the meantime, my mind goes all around in circles, trying to quell my fears. I bounce from logic (he’s a college student who was up late last night, celebrating his birthday) and prayers, to fear thoughts that make me want to rip my hair out, and then back again to fervent prayers. I made 8:45 a.m. the time that I would embarrass him, by waking up his roommates. I hate to inconvenience his friends (who already have experienced one of his frightening seizures, and drive him all around, because my son can’t drive until these seizures are controlled by medicine again) and I hate to embarrass my son, but I have done it before and I will do it again, if need be. Having a child with epilepsy is quite a delicate balancing act. For their mental health and quality of life, you want to keep things as “normal” as possible, but for your own mental health and quality of life, you have a heightened need to control as many variables, as possible.
Luckily, my son finally picked up his phone at 8:25 this morning, apologetically assuring me that he had taken his meds at 7:50 and had just forgotten to text me. This is, thankfully, how these episodes usually end up . . . with a happy ending. May this always be the case. (hear my prayer)
Last night, my husband and I were talking about the charities we give to, and the things which we volunteer for in our community, currently, in this stage of our lives. We talked about the role we play in the charities relating to epilepsy. Sometimes, I wonder if epilepsy was brought into our lives, for us to help champion finding the cures, to bring attention to this ailment, and to help others to deal with the uncertainty that epilepsy brings to people’s lives. But honestly, none of us in our family, want to make epilepsy the focal point of our lives. Most of all, our son doesn’t want to be defined by it. None of us want to bring any more attention to epilepsy, which is possibly the most painful situation in any of our lives. So, we quietly steer money towards various epilepsy charities, but otherwise, we try to keep epilepsy out of our minds, as much as we can. On a personal level, I try to give compassion to anyone who lives with a chronic ailment or disease. I empathize with these courageous people, more than I ever have before. Is what we do, in regards to epilepsy, enough? I don’t know. But I have to listen to my heart speak. I have to understand my own limits, and to trust in my own purpose, which is firstly, the health and the sanity of me, and my immediate family.
In this crazy, confusing, unfathomable year, there are a lot of us out there who want to save the world. We want the pain to end. We want the uncertainty to go away, for everyone. We want all of the “right” answers to come, and to come quickly to fix everything back up to “normal.” There are a lot of us who are bewildered and scared and we empathetically recognize those same feelings from everyone we encounter. (even with everyone being all masked up). But let’s remember, these problems are too big for any one of us to overcome, on an individual basis. It’s okay to take care of yourself, and just do what you are able to do, on a daily basis. It’s okay to nurture yourself, and your people as best as you can, because that’s how major problems do get fixed. Everyone does the best that they can, with their own individual lives and their own individual purposes. We are droplets of the Ocean, that makes up life. We are trees and branches and leaves and roots of The Tree of Life. We are each cells of The Body. It’s not the job of a skin cell to pump the heart. It is not the job of the tree bark to make chlorophyll. It’s not the job of a water droplet to soak all of the farmlands, the world over. If everyone just does their best, to be their own individual best, The Body is healthy and thrives, The Tree stands tall and strong, and the Oceans of Water remain the source of replenishing saturation of Life all over. We are all doing our best, with what we can, and that is enough. We are enough. We don’t realize this, because we are each, just one teensy unit, in a major process of universal healing and growing and expansion, that is happening all of the time. This year of growing pains, has just brought an acute awareness to this fact. All that we have to do, on an individual basis, is to hang on, nurture ourselves and others in the capacity in which we are able to do, and to trust in this process. Then, we can look forward to the time when we can expand our vision, to greater, calmer heights, to be able to see the true beauty and perfection, of that which we call Creation. Creation has been made, and will always be made by every one of us, into eternity. We are each just tiny sparks of Creation and that is enough, to be a precious spark, lighting the world in our own special individual way.
