my confession

My son was born with catastrophic brain damage. In the first 12 to 24 hours, we were faced with constant updates and changing information about whether he would live, and if he did live, what his life might look like. When it became very clear that any "life" he had would be entirely in a hospital, with a feeding tube, never to open his eyes, hear my voice, respond to any of us, obviously, my heart and my dreams for life with him were shattered. And then I selfishly also thought of myself, and my husband, and our marriage, and whether it would survive that sort of ordeal, whether I could possibly handle that sort of life. "I don't want to..." I kept thinking. When we were told that we should take him off of life support (well, I suppose it was only suggested, but we both agreed), I too felt a little bit of that relief. And of course I am ashamed about that now. Did my son know that I couldn't handle a severely disabled child, and therefore chose to leave? I hope not. I hope, if he knew anything, it was only the pure depth and endless limit to my love for him.

One other incredibly awful, guilt stricken thought that continued to haunt me especially in the early days; when I was about 7 or 8 months pregnant, my dog became very ill, and was in the emergency hospital overnight, we didn't know if he would live or not. My dog and I are incredibly close. I was distraught, to say the least, facing the prospect of losing my dog. In my anxiety and chaos and sadness I tried to barter with God, "Take this baby, just let my dog live...." So of course the dog did live. And I assumed since nothing catastrophic happened with the baby that day, or the following day, that God hadn't taken me up on my offer. When Otis died, two months later, I immediately flashed back to my wager that I made on that day in the emergency vet, and I *knew* I was to blame for my son's death. I traded my dog for my son.

I shared this with my husband, and instead of correcting me, telling me "that's not how it works" or some other reassuring thing, he got incredibly mad at me, how dare I even have such a thought, and his response reinforced my belief that I traded my son's soul for my dog's life. I have had to speak to numerous religious folk and therapist types to be reassured that this is not how God works, that if indeed we could bribe our way in and out of life's scariest moments a lot more people would. Sometimes it still haunts me.