Day 13 - How the mind works

Today was the first (week)day of family vacation and we ended up in the emergency room with our foster son after the bridge of his nose met the coffee table edge and it was not pretty. A three hour visit and the hard part (stitches) was done in the last 10 minutes.

Your mind does funny little things when it remembers. Sounds and smells are probably the most jarring for me.

A few months ago, we had friends whose newborn had to go to UVA briefly for an infection at about a week old. I ran food up to their room (down the hall from Jack’s room actually) and the dings of call bells, the beeps of monitors, the sliding of med drawers, and the scary ding for the medical response team. The smell of medical cleaner. It floods my brain with memories.

I felt a little bit of that today. The sound of the glass doors sliding open and shut. The heart monitor beeps. The sound of the portable x ray machine going by. It’s stuck in my brain and somewhere deep it connects the dots between the sound and the experiences we had with Jack.

It is probably a touch of PTSD but I’m no doctor and “what” it is called isn’t going to change the fact that it is. In one sense, it’s proof that the memories with Jack will last a while. In another sense, it’s heart breaking that sad and scary hospital sounds outline my memories with him.

I say this all the time but the good and the hard live intertwined. I can’t parse them out most of the time. It is never all good or all bad. It is both always. In this imperfect world, we have a perfect savior. We, imperfect sinners, get to be known and loved by a perfect, all knowing father. We experience pain and hurt with the hope of a future in heaven where we won’t shed anymore tears.

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