the thing that broke my heart...but not all the way

So, I'm inching up on the three year anniversary of having Rheumatic Fever. I only remember because the illness finally took me down on Valentines Day, and because it is the instance of the most physical pain I have ever endured in my life (including the birth of all four boys combined), and the thing which has made any other pain I've endured since (breaking my foot, passing a kidney stone) bearable in comparison.

But do you know there was an exact moment I can trace catching the illness? It is a story I've never shared on the blog before. It is one that still makes me shake all over when I think about.

It was a Saturday night, February 2008. We'd just finished watching SNL. That was one of our favorite things to do together. Brad said he needed to go back in the office and get some work done. He did that a lot. He called me when he got there and told me there were so many jobs left that he might just stay and sleep on their couch. He did that a lot too. But he always came home by 7 am. Especially when we had early church the next morning. So, unworried, I went to bed.

Sunday morning came. I woke up early, immediately aware that he wasn't in bed next to me. He wasn't in the bathroom. Or in the house at all. I left the kids watching a DVD and drove to his office. It had been snowing all night. His car wasn't there, nor was there even a mark showing it had been there since the snow started. The blinds were closed. The door was locked. I was certain he had been robbed, his car taken, and that he was, that very moment, tied up inside-- hurt and bleeding, or worse, killed. Can you imagine thinking your husband is dead on the other side of a door you can't open? I drove home, everything in me working overtime to keep me calm and rational.  I called all the hospitals in the area, all saying they had no one brought in matching his description. I called the police who said they couldn't help me if there was someone with an extra key to the office. I called his business partner who had the extra key...and who also had an idea of where Brad was. Which wasn't dead. But which, to me, almost seemed worse. It was a very, very bad morning. My body literally shut down. While my sister-in-law and the business partner discussed what to do, I wandered outside, trying to make sure I hadn't crossed over into some nightmare. I threw up. I had on no coat or shoes. Unable to walk anymore, I finally sat down in a snow bank and couldn't get up. They didn't notice that I had left for almost half an hour. I just kept sitting there. I couldn't feel anything but numb shock.

---

By chance, I ended up reading through old emails I wrote to Brad tonight and came across some from February of 2009, the ones referencing that very, very bad day the year before. Funny, I thought a year ago I had things all figured out. Thought the same thing a year before that. And the year before that one. This is how life shapes you, I am certain. It lets you know that you, of yourself, never have the answers or the plan, and saying that you do is practically begging for old Life to come and show you differently.

There was a whole section in this letter about my Z that I removed, and I shortened or changed everyone else's name to protect them. But this is part of an important lesson I've learned:


From: zbug
To: b.rad.



Subject: 365 days ago



Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 20:41:37 -0700



So, as I looked on the calendar to see what I had planned for tomorrow, I noticed a little note I'd made. It was a year ago tomorrow that I woke up and you weren't home. And you weren't at your office. And I thought you were dead. And then had to find out that you were actually at H's house doing Heaven knows what---I still haven't really believed any of what you told me about what went on that night. Why I wish you no ill in this life, I hope one day you will be able to feel--even for a moment--the intense fear, sickness, sadness, and overall WHY?!?!?! that event caused. I would never, ever, ever have thought you capable of acting that way---especially when the night before you looked me directly in the eyes and told me how much you loved me. I think if you watched someone beating the crap out of an infant---that would probably be the best way to describe how I felt about that whole, awful day. I was like the infant. I trusted you. I believed every word you told me, every rationalization you made. No matter how much the Spirit or my own intelligence was telling me that what you were saying didn't make sense, I would never have thought you capable of hurting me as deeply as you did. I would never, never, never have done that to you.


I don't know if you read my blog post the other day or not. It was not meant to attack you---only to try and express the deep, deep sorrow I have that all the wonderful things I'd hoped for my family are like distant dreams now. Even if I do end up marrying Haute Cakes (more on that in the next paragraph), he will not be a substitute for you. He will treat the boys well and be a good friend to them, but their hearts will always be with you.


Like I said to you in my last letter---I don't know what is going to happen with Haute Cakes and I. I love him very much. But there is also a part of me that is very afraid of him, a part that assumes everything he is telling me is a lie, and that he has the potential to hurt me as deeply as you did. Also, I just had my house appraised----not only is there currently a SEVEN YEAR supply of homes on the market right now, but my home could only be listed for the $1**,000 area. That means I would MAYBE get half of what we put into it out of it. Renting is a pretty soft option right now too. Not to mention that I have no idea how you would be able to move and find a job that would pay you enough to live in Southern California in this economy. Haute Cakes does well, but he doesn't do well enough to take on me and 4 kids without some kind of income brought in by me. So, chances are I stay here for the next few years and wait for......something. Some kind of magic. More refining fires. I can only think that it's the Lord's way of saying that I am not want for that kind of happiness in this life, but to find happiness in the midst of my adversities. I don't get to have the storm around me calmed, just the one inside me.

I never in a million years would have thought myself to be here at this point in my life.
A year ago. The beginning of the end. The day that sitting in a snowbank in my pajamas with no coat and no shoes-- shaking, worrying, crying, wondering where my husband was-- gave me strep that gave me rheumatic fever.


I guess in comparison I've come a long way.

~Jennifer

And you know what? I HAVE come even further now, two years after writing that. I still don't have everything figured out. But the difference is, I'm ok with that now. Most days, anyway :). I am still muddling through what was and what is and what will be, but I am hopeful. And healthy, despite the heart damage caused by the illness. And I still trust in my God to lead me along--even if it's to a place I'd never choose to go on my own. Because He is the one person I CAN always trust. And that's worthy of a little celebration. I'm thinking burrito.