By Judith Roberts
My 2016 Christmas was supposed to be the year’s redemption.
We started the year early on with my father’s passing due to dementia. I was seven months pregnant with our daughter, Penny, at the time. My heart broke that my daughter – the one whose name he picked out three years previously – would not meet her grandfather. Would not experience his humor, his kindness, and his love. He would never hold her like he held our firstborn, never know the legacy he was leaving behind with our little girl.
When Penny was born, I was so thankful. We had spent a small stint in NICU with Alice, but with Penny, she was healthy enough to go home quickly, and our household of three turned into a household of four.
But then – something went wrong.
It started when she was five weeks old with a nighttime trip to the emergency room. After following up with her pediatrician the following day and a short hospital stay, it was determined that she had an issue with renal reflux, which, while it could have been worse, broke my mama heart. During her hospital stay, my baby had to have a spinal tap. At five weeks old.
She had another flare up a few months later, and our pediatrician warned us that this could be a long-term issue, one that would follow her around for, if not the length of her childhood, possibly her entire life.
But Christmas was coming.
I was excited – I wanted to be excited. I wanted the joy and magic of Christmas to exude through my children, where I could get lost in the mystery and wholesomeness of the season and not think about how hard this year had been. I wanted to focus on Jesus and the story of the first Christmas and how much He meant to me.
We visited my aunt in Mississippi on Christmas Eve, and Penny seemed off. Tired. Cranky. She was quite a spoiled baby at any rate (even commented on by our pediatrician at one point!), so I tried to put my anxiety at ease, thinking that it was just her being in a new environment with a lot of new people. Nothing to worry about.
By that evening, once we arrived home, we realized she was running fever. Again. And any fever she had at this point was always followed by a trip to the ER.
I remember sitting, holding this precious, precious little infant in my arms, wondering why her first Christmas was spent in the ER. Why instead of putting her in her sweet little crib and whispering about presents in the morning and being with her father and sister, she and I were settling into a hospital room on the peds floor.
It wasn’t fair.
I was so angry. Bitter even. My baby deserved better than this, I thought. Heck, I deserved better after this year. Why did this have to happen?
Life just happens.
The good, the bad, the ugly – we don’t get to escape the last two and just keep the first one. We don’t get to say that we only deserve the good. We have to take the punches when they come and just hope when they do come, we’re ready for them, whether that be a solid relationship with Christ, a close community of friends and family, a good therapist – or a mix of all three or something else.
When Penny was hospitalized that first Christmas, I was ready. I was mad at first – but I was ready. I cried out to God, I railed against Him – because He could take it. He was ready for me, and He could handle my anger.
Once we settled in, we brought up her little walker from the house, and since she was the only patient on the peds floor, she got the run of the hall, exploring and making friends with the nurses and doctors. We had a steady stream of visitors, and, because our older daughter was only 3, we still had our little family Christmas morning.
When Penny was released from the hospital, we told Alice, our older daughter, that this was the night of Christmas Eve. And she was 3, so she believed it. And we did the traditional Christmas morning just fine – just a couple of days late.
Now, when we tell Penny the story of her first Christmas, we talk about the struggles we went through, the trials we endured and how incredibly thankful we are for her health and for the care she received from doctors, nurses, family and friends during that time. We joke about how Christmas came late and how wonderful it was. We talk about how Christmas is more than just a date on the calendar – that it means more because it is more.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Penny hasn’t had an issue with renal reflux since that Christmas Eve. We are still conscious that it’s part of her medical history, but we don’t worry about it like we did. We call her our little warrior princess – and we tell her about that Christmas when, even through suffering, we celebrated the true joy of Christmas – our Savior.
