As Long as He's...

When I was pregnant with Wesley, we did a child birth class at the hospital he was born at.  One of the tasks given to us was completing a puzzle of our wishes for our birth based on various criteria.  Then we had to gradually eleminate pieces, prioritizing our wishes, until just one was left emphasizing that no matter what, this was the most important thing for everyone in the process. A Healthy Baby.

I'm not sure how we got to this place as a society of holding health in such high esteem. Health is something we have such little control over. We will all ultimately have failing health that will lead to our death whether that is from acute trauma or long term illness. There is some illusion that if we achieve this level of health we will somehow escaped our inevitable death or at the very least avoid as much pain and suffering before that final moment as possible. We all know on an intillectual level that we are very mortal.  We hear stories of car accidents, cancers, mass traumas where the illusion of health is taken away in an instant and yet we keep saying things like "as long as he's healthy" as if that is the most important attribute we can imagine.  To the cancer patient or the family wrought by the effects of long term illness or disability, those statements hold a bit of a sting.  When your day to day life reveals that despite your best efforts, health may not be attainable, the value that society places on health seems all the more apparent and unfair.  There is this lingering unanswered question around what if they aren't healthy.  Do we still value them and their unhealthy life?

As a response to this unjustified overvaluing of health, I've heard those in the "special needs community" modify this statement to "as long as he's happy."  This sits much better in terms of our ability to control this desirable outcome but I'm not sure it's an accurate descriptor of our ultimate, root goal.  If everything else we desire has to be forsaken, is happiness the last value we'll cling to?  On many levels, being able to be happy no matter the situation is a huge asset in life. But I'm not sure that's the board I will cling to when the rest of the ship has fallen to pieces.

When I look back at Wesley's birth and first month of life, I would love to be able to say I found deep happiness (or perhaps joy) amidst the heartache but my memories don't affirm that.  Perhaps I should have been able to be happy at becoming a mother and meeting my precious baby, but my memories are filled mostly with shock, fear, and worry.  I would not classify that as a happy time in my life.  Just as when my dad was diagnosed with cancer and a long journey of deteriorating health began, I can't imagine defining that time as happy.  Yet, despite being quite unhappy, we were together and that was more important. There are moments of happiness and joy intermixed within the toughest moments in life but the permiating emotion is far from happiness.  And yet, these traumatic moments, these heartbreaking situations, seemingly void of happiness are the ones that make the highlight reel when we think through the defining moments in life.  Although I have very fond memories of laughing to the point of crying with good friends, if I am to search to identify the times that formed who I am as a person and strengthened my character,
the laughter, as sweet as it is, doesn't make the list.  So it seems that our root virtue, the one wish above all else for our children, is not health or happiness.

When I boil the question down to that level, it seems so clear.  If all else must be forsaken, what do I want most for my children?
To be loved.  When I carried my seizing child into the emergency room, tears running down my face, and stood in the corner watching helplessly as doctors frantically tried to calm his shaking body while my parents watched anxiously from the hallway, health and happiness seemed so far away, yet love is everpresent holding us together.  When I attend funerals for children and teenagers taken from this earth long before their parents, despite fond memories of better, happier, healthier days, the power of those moments is in the abundance of love.  I doubt a single soul would end their life wishing for less time loving and being loved in exchange for more smiles alone or more years alone prolonging the inevitable.

I had a wonderful, traumatic, miraculous, unhappy birth that resulted in a unhealthy baby, and yet, it was the beginning of a life changing, strengthening journey that reminds me daily that love is all you need.