Timo heals, I heal...but differently

 I have been slow in bringing words to the blog. I began to process the past two years, and I guess my whole life, actually. And then I stop and get sucked into the current dramas of my life and days. There have been plenty (I'm sure this comes as no surprise). And part of the process is realizing I can't share everything that goes on in our household. There are other people's lives navigating the twists and turns of life. There are young people emerging, finding who they'll be, what they'll believe, how they'll engage with the world. There are pleasant and unpleasant discussions. For me, there is a moment-by-moment discernment of how much to correct and how much to pray over and trust the Lord to correct. I see my children growing, considering the things that go on in the world, form opinions (some or many of which I might find disturbing!) and realize they were never mine to own, only mine to steward for a season.

That said, when children hurt, make terrible judgements, fail to make wise decisions, or demonstrate self-obsessed thought-patterns, I do look back over the parenting journey and question, doubt, wrestle, and repent over what I missed, how I let them down, how I didn't or couldn't show up as my best self for them. There is a trust and a tenderness in this process. A resolve to not swerve in the direction of shame, which is always toxic because it has nowhere to go, nowhere to land, only to fester and stir and grow in the recesses of inner darkness. For a long time, I was so shame-averse (and there's wisdom in this!) that I didn't know how to look at my journey with an ability to reckon with the apparent failures. Every failure seemed to invite despair and shame. This is completely normal when one has a depressive personality, or has clinical depression, as I do - or have had. 

But my journey with Jesus is such that I wondered to Him in prayer, 'Could I look at my journey as a parent, honestly with You, and hold it with the same compassion and kindness that You do?' These are the kinds of questions I ask God in my prayer-ramblings that are impulsive and not consciously constructed. When words and thoughts flow out in a jumble, and I know God is actively listening and paying attention, because, well, God is like that, this is a form of prayer even if it isn't worded in complete sentences and have an exact query or goal. Most of my prayers end up being a stillness, a quiet, then an avalanche of thoughts, and then a final capstone of, "Well Lord, what do You think of all this? It seems a jumble of random concerns. Maybe You can make sense of it and give me some help in knowing how to think of each fear, problem, regret, sorrow or struggle."

Those days following Timo's accident are crystalized in my memory as a kind of horror and stillness all at once. It is as if my breath was suspended in mid-air, like on frosty winter days, but I couldn't see the breath moving. I'm so grateful for the ways God carried me through - as I look back it seems so horrific and amazing that I survived that - and that Timo survived it. He is walking and breathing and thinking and learning to pilot and welding and everything and I just can't hardly believe the goodness of God towards him, towards us. God is so kind and powerful and to have our son with us is evidence of this. 

I had ambitions to write hand-written thank you notes to each one who supported us at that time: The college roommate whose immediate gesture of generosity arrived in our mail the following week; The numerous people who brought over meals, some from church, some from school, and others in the community; A neighbor brought a card and a donation that helped with travel meals and gas to the city. We were overwhelmed with both generosity and anxiety over the mounting medical bills. We had to trust and receive - both of these require a humility that our souls were stretched to accommodate. 

There was a grief and hardship that seemed to both drain the life out of me and also force some life into me. My hair suddenly ramped up its greying (or whiting :D), my hormones decided it was a good time to start the decline and shift into a preview of coming attractions of aging. My health always seemed on the brink of disaster after the 2021 Covid episode which permanently altered my digestion. I say the life felt like it drained out - and that was a physical reaction and emotional reaction to shock and distress. But I also said it was like it was forcing life into me. Maybe that seems surprising. But what I mean is that by having to accompany Timo to appointments, and having to serve him in ways that I never expected, I had a lot of time for soul-reckoning. For reflection. For repentance. It was a time of anguish and introspection. God was giving me space. And forcing me to function where lethargy and deep depression had seemed to paralyze me before. Timo's breaking was part of my healing. And I hated that it was. 

I know God has His purposes for what He allows, and I have to trust He will oversee Timo's life because I can't. But when I journeyed through the breaking of  my child, I too wore the breaking like a cloak of sackcloth over my soul. There was enough practical serving that was required for us to function - loading wheelchairs, walkers, etc. These physical tasks were in a sense a reprieve from the soul-work going on in me. I was overwhelmed, understandably. But God was gentle and kind with me, opening my eyes to see where He was inviting me to change. I cringe at the word 'change'. It's like the other cringe-word for me, 'goals.' 

I can't say I received the invitation gladly. I resist change. Depression fit me so well it was as if it had become me. I couldn't separate my essence from the warped worldview of a depressed person. I could read about it and understand it, but I couldn't quite make sense of it from the inside. It's like a cloud consumes you and though it is a dark, dank, miserable cave of isolation, it seems to become a home, a hibernating place where the familiarity is so strangely comforting it lulls you into thinking this is where you want to stay. Anyone who knows depression from the inside can attest to this. It's both painful and addicting, and so disorienting that the familiarity of darkness of soul becomes it's own soothing balm. One might be tempted to make one's home in such a dark familiar cave. And though it isn't a choice to be depressed it is a choice to avoid looking at it and doing something with it. 

The lifelessness of depression that has consumed me for years could not co-exist with the sudden needs of my broken boy. I had to step up and do what seemed impossible and overwhelming. I didn't have it in me to give myself to it, but there I was: A deeply depressed and lifelong trauma survivor thrown into caretaking and navigating the initial months of rehab. It almost seems comical that God would entrust such a task to such a one as me. I didn't fit the job description.

As the months passed, Timo rapidly made progress. In fact, the physical therapists and surgeons were surprised every visit to see how his bones were coming together. They had said to anticipate a 6-12 month recovery. By 5 months Timo's bones were completely fused as they should be. He is truly a walking miracle. He aggressively pursued a course of fitness and working out to develop and value every bone and muscle in his body. Being restricted to limited mobility and being bed-bound at first was a reckoning for him - for a boy who likes to move, it was an epic time-out. He didn't always make the best decisions - like 2 months later when I found him up a tree even though both arms weren't very functional. "Those branches were bothering me! They needed to be cut down!" he yelled from about 25 feet up. I told him to carefully get down - one tiny slip and we would be looking at more fractures on top of yet-to-be-healed fractures. This is a kid you couldn't hold down. As soon as he could walk he was pushing himself to do stuff - we had to convince him that rest is productive. "He doesn't let the grass grow under his feet!" a friend commented referring to Timo's work ethic. 

If I am a depressive, Timo is anything but. The exact opposite. He has no time for looking back, only forward. It is fascinating to try to understand where he comes by such a perspective - we couldn't be more opposite. I like to understand why people are the way we are - what led us to develop good or bad habits or outlooks. Timo has little interest in such things. His big focus is wanting to make money. He thinks we didn't focus on this enough in life, and as most teenagers do, he wants to take up the deficits of his upbringing. It's my prayer that he'll develop as much interest in expanding God's kingdom as he does in expanding his own :D