The Inadequate Power to Decide

This is something I have been wanting to write about for a long time - something that pulls at my broken heart every time I think about it. All my life I have been taught that decisions bring about consequences. Some consequences are good and some are not, but we always have the power to choose. However, no one ever warned me about what happens when a life changing decision is not really yours to make, but you still have to decide. Doesn't really make sense, huh? Yeah, it still doesn't make sense to me either. It's not like deciding what color to paint the walls of your home or what you will do on Saturday night and it's not like deciding what to have for dinner - oh, how I would love to have those be the extent of my decisions again. I envy those innocent days. This decision was nothing close to that . . . but it's a decision to be made nonetheless.

Yesterday Gavin would have been ten months old and today he has been gone for seven months. It's been seven long and painful months since we had to make that decision - a decision to play God - a decision that we were asked to make in the most exhausting and excruciating moments of our lives. Oh, and by the way, it has to be the right choice too. The doctors and medical staff told us it was the right thing to do - it was the kind thing - we should have no regrets - he wouldn't have made it much longer anyway - his body was agitated and failing - if we didn't make a choice now, it wouldn't be a choice any more. We were NEVER forced into this decision, but I think I had been prepared a few days before about what needed to happen for Gavin, but how does a mother and father make that decision? This wasn't like the time where we had to decide to give Gavin a tracheotomy to help him breathe. The night Jason signed the surgical consent forms for the trach I watched him punch the couch in anguish and cry, "How could I sign a paper that says it's okay to put a hole in my child's throat?" (Needless to say, I always made a point to sign the consents after that.) That was a decision to help Gavin survive - this new decision was one that I felt completely inadequate to make. A decision we needed help to make.

Perhaps there is a reason why we are to make these kinds of choices in those moments that we are so emotionally overdrawn and submissive. It's like admitting defeat - a defeat that is still vaguely lived each and every day for me. But the conqueror is not worldly, it's a spiritual submission to Heavenly Father's will. It's the time where as mortal beings we step back and say, "Not my will, but Thy will be done." It takes so much faith and hope to accept His will.

Sometimes I get angry when I hear, "Well, at least you are an eternal family." Yes, I know I will be with my family again - I believe that and I have so much gratitude for that, but that doesn't take away the intense earthly moments of grief and loneliness that comes with burying a child. It softens the blow but it doesn't take away the anguish when your husband looks at you the next morning and says, "We let our son die last night."

Yes, we know the eternal picture and we have faith in that, but we still mourn for what we have lost. I say we have lost, but we have also gained a more purposeful existence. I have developed a more clear understanding of the purpose of life and the love of a mother for her child.

Some people ask, "How did you do that?" To answer with perfect honesty, I can say that we weren't the ones deciding that day. There is a reason decisions like that are made when you are tired, emotionally drained and defeated - it's because you make the decision from your gut and you are guided by something stronger and more all-knowing than you are. We signed the papers, but the answer had been made clear for us. Gavin told us in his own way that his body and his time were finished - he had just been hanging on until we could let him go peacefully. What a sweet boy I have . . .

I am so grateful I did not have to make that decision or the ones to follow alone. I am grateful (and sorrowful for him) that my sweet husband never left my side. I am grateful we had our families to sit in the hospice room where Gavin spent his last few hours with us. I am grateful our parents went with us to pick out his small two foot casket and I am grateful my parents guided us with the decisions on the headstone and plot. All decisions a parent shouldn't ever have to make - but we do it anyway. Mostly, I am grateful for the guidance of my Father in Heaven to know the right thing to do for my baby Gavin. I have felt His strength and comfort during my moments of darkness and I continue to feel Him guide me now. I truly believe that when a parent is asked to do these kinds of things, we are blessed and comforted. This isn't an easy road to walk, but we do not walk it alone.