Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted among men. Psalm 47:10
I walked alone that evening as the sun dripped purple and pink and orange behind the blackened silhouettes of the lush late summer oaks. I walked heavy and swollen and ripe with you, slowly, slowly, as I felt you yearning to be born. My body clung to you; it would not let you go. And I walked. And I heard it then, while we walked that long trail, the trail that was only beginning that night before you were born. It whispered to me.
Be still and know.
That first night I held you. I struggled to lift my head to see you, to look into your squinting, screaming eyes. My body tingled and shivered as the anesthesia numbed out the struggle of your birth. The nurses flitted around you and the doctors around me. Who in the operating room acknowledged the precious something taking place? Who in the operating room recognized a mother gazing upon her most precious reward for the very first time?
Be still and know.
Those nights we sat in bed and you sweetly suckled while the cicadas chirped outside our midnight window, the leaves rustling gently with the late July breeze. The house rested silently; dark and cool with only us to witness it. I gently crooned to you. And we fell asleep together, your tiny hand in mine.
Be still and know.
Those days you first trembled. The times I lifted you from where you dreamt only seconds before, shuddering, shivering in my own shaking arms. Those first times I held your buttery cheek to mine and sang to you those worn out lullabies, voice cracking, all alone.
Be still and know.
While we first sat on the bed in that tiny dark room, two dozen sensors glued to your head. You nursed and dozed in my arms and I sat rigid, almost afraid to breathe, staring the wall. A TV remote sat beside us, a magazine, a book, and I sat clammily clutching the red alert button and stared blankly at those ridiculous translucent bear wall stickers stuck over that icky green paint. For an hour.
Be still and know.
As the doctor’s words crashed over us in that chilly, fluorescent exam room; tuberous sclerosis, brain problems, delays, disfiguration, tiny tumor. We smiled actually, said thank you, shook hands with the doctor as he left. And there, as the universe culminated and somehow we kept moving…
Be still and know.
When you screamed, tiny and helpless and thrashing and I listened to you feeling tiny and helpless, my heart thrashing as an IV was inserted into your delicate, three month old arm.
Be still and know.
That night in the hospital when the seizures took you from my arms hour after hour after hour and not knowing if you would ever come back to me...
Be still and know.
With every test; your brain, your heart, your kidneys, your lungs, your blood, your urine, your spinal fluid, your blood, your blood, your blood. Every time I held you down and stroked your face while you screeched and flailed, confused, your eyes locked on mine just pleading. Every time my voice broke a little while cooing to you; you’re brave, you’re so strong and beautiful, it won’t last long, this will all be over soon baby, oh sweetie, I love you… I’m so sorry.
Be still and know.
The hours and days and months we’ve waited. For results, and more tests, and information, and seizures… and for the world to crumble, or not, we’ve waited.
Be still and know.
With every test that comes back clear and my heart jumps a little and a little piece of that big ominous boulder of losing you is chipped away. And I rejoice.
Be still and know.
Now, as we wait. Now, at this moment, in this place where, like anyone else, we wait. We do not know what tomorrow will bring us, or today, or this hour, or this very next minute. I sit here in this second of tranquility and hold you sleeping in my arms and I do not know if, in an instant, you will awake, slowly gaze away and succumb to the tremors that constantly beckon you.
But now when I anticipate what might be next for us, a surreal feeling of relief washes over me. And it is not because I believe that it won’t be painful, because I don't.
It is because I’ve been still.
And I know.
And that makes all the difference.
