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The Faces

Dear Son, 

Tomorrow will be 8 years since you have been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It doesn’t seem possible, really, that it’s been almost a decade since that day. But time has an amazing way of moving on. I guess it’s God’s grace to us – that we keep having days and nights and seasons and years after a nightmare. 

I thought that by now the memories would fade a little, but they haven’t. I still remember every single detail. I remember the way you looked at me in the doctor’s office when you asked me what was wrong with you. I remember those blue eyes of yours opening up wide when I told you that we were going to have to take you to the hospital.

I remember driving in pounding rain and thinking that the sky’s tears were no match for my sobs. 

I remember the numbness I felt in the hospital room. I remember hoping that other people were praying for us because I had no words in my heart. I remember curling up around you in the hospital bed, my arms wrapped around you and my shoulders folded in over you, like I could somehow protect you from what was to come with my body.

I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.

I remember the shots. All the shots. I remember you asking how long you would have to have needles jabbed in your arms, belly, and legs and I didn’t know how to tell a 5 year old that it would be for the rest of his life. I remember you thinking you only would have diabetes for a short time, then you would be well and have no more needles poking you.

I remember the day you realized this would never end. 

I guess those memories will never shrink for me – they will always trigger fear and helplessness and anger. And maybe I’ve subconsciously made a choice, all these years later, to try to not let those memories take hold of me and control me. I can’t give them power anymore. 

So now before I think of the tears and the pain and the grief, I remember something else. When I think of your diagnosis day, I remember the faces. I see our doctor’s face, sad but kind as he told me we would be ok. I think of nurses’ faces in the emergency room, smiling at you and telling you how cute you were. I think of a doctor who we had never met before staying late and waiting for us at the hospital, her face stern but caring as she walked in the room. I remember the emergency room doctor’s face, assuring us that he would do everything possible for you to begin this journey in a positive way. That he would not scare you or hold you down or traumatize you with needles. 

Do you remember those faces too? I hope you do. Because those faces were the faces of God that day. And I don’t want you to ever forget that. I want you to remember that when the light was taken out of our lives, the faces gave it back to us. 

During that awful time, I thought God had abandoned us. I thought He was far away and that I would never see His face again. 

Son, I was so very wrong about that.

God was there, shining His face on me as He does to all of us. That day His face was brown and pale and old and young and dark-eyed and blue-eyed. Of course I didn’t know if was His face then, but now I can see it so clearly.

I’m sure you know by now, but there will probably be other bad days in your life as you grow. It won’t always be happiness and good times. But when those days come, I want you to do one thing – Look at the faces that are helping you and showing you kindness and surrounding you with love. Look hard at those faces to make sure you remember. And if you stare long enough, I bet you will see the face of God.

Love, 

Mama

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Take Those Pictures, America

As many of you already know, I had grand plans this year for our Summer of America. After a year of sitting at home thanks to Covid, I was ready to be on the move. It was time to see the country. My extensive traveling tour took us all the way to the Grand Canyon in the West, to the middle of Florida in the East, then back again. We racked up 6,000 miles on the road this summer. We created a playlist of favorite songs, packed a lot of snacks, stayed in roadside motels and mega-hotels, and made the best memories in between.  

I learned a lot about our country as we drove those miles. Mainly that people are people no matter where they live or what they look like. There are poor people and rich people. Nice people and mean people. People who have a ready smile and easy laugh, and people whose faces are hard and set in place. 

The accents might be different, the clothes and shoes vary depending on the climate. The skin tones are dark or light. The food changes from state to state (green or red salsa, anyone?), the art depicts the local culture, and the landscape transforms from stone to sand to green. 

But there is one thing that I noticed everyone had in common no matter where we traveled – we love taking those pictures, America. 

From the top of the Grand Canyon to the corner of Winslow, Arizona, we pose and smile as soon as someone whips out their phone. We love to snap a picture of where we’ve been, proof that we stood on that very spot at that moment in time.

We probably took thousands of photos this summer and I watched hundreds of other families do the same. We would all stand in line in a certain spot, next to a statue or a historical marker or a giant bunny you could sit on. And I noticed that there were a few unwritten rules everyone seemed to innately understand and follow while taking these pictures.

1 – No cutting in line. Wait your turn. Don’t sneak around the side and try to grab a picture. Go to the back of the line and be patient. No one likes a line-cutter.

2 – Don’t hog the picture spot. Take a few photos of your family and move on. People are waiting, so don’t be rude. 

3 – My favorite rule of all. Offer to take the picture of the people in front of you. Grab their phone and say a few cheesy things like “We made it to the Top of the Ball of Yarn!” Become a photo expert and take some shots close up then far away. Giggle with the strangers as you hand them back their phone and say “See you at the Jackrabbit!” 

I watched family after family have their pictures taken by strangers. And you know what?

It gave me a little bit of hope that our country was going to be ok.

If we can trust someone we’ve never met to hold our very expensive phones and be the coordinator of our most precious possessions – our family pictures – then maybe, just maybe we can trust each other in the big things too. Maybe we have more faith in our fellow countrymen than we like to believe. Maybe America is not such a bad place where all we do is argue and call each other names. 

Maybe the real America is found somewhere near a Giant Jackrabbit – In a line of families all waiting to take a photo.

Maybe someone offers to take a picture of your family and you hand over your phone and after a few shots you ask where that person is from and they say Utah and you say Louisiana and then you invite each other to visit your state sometime. Maybe you decide to snap a picture with that person from Utah just for the fun of it. And you don’t ever know her name or why she’s on the road or who she’s voting for or what she believes. But you know she took your picture. And she smiled a lot. And she told you that you had a beautiful family. 

And maybe that’s all we need to do for each other. Offer to take someone’s photo. It might just be the start of learning to love our neighbor again. 

Say Cheese, America. 

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The Man in the White Coat

Sometimes I picture him as an older man. He has a grey beard and silver hair and wrinkles around the corner of his eyes. Sometimes I picture him as a young man. He is just starting out his career and is learning the hard ropes of being a doctor. At times his skin is light, other times it is a beautiful mix of brown and gold. Sometimes, in my mind, he has a stethoscope slung carelessly around his neck because he had seen so many patients that day and we were his last ones before his long shift ended. Other times he is dressed crisp and neatly, with pressed pants and a starched shirt. He is ready for whatever might come his way as he is just starting his rounds at the hospital. 

Honestly, I can’t remember what he looks like. I’ve tried over the years – I’ve tried to conjure up the image of that doctor who saved me that night in the ER. I can’t ever really picture him, so I like to make him look all different kinds of ways. I wish I could remember. I wish I knew his name. 

But the only thing I can really say for sure is that he was wearing a white coat. 

The man in the white coat is the one who lifted me up on that awful, miserable day. He rescued me from a tomb of fear, anger, despair, and utter destruction. He set me on the path that would lead to hope and love and faith in humankind. 

And I can’t even remember what he looked like. 

I guess it doesn’t matter, really. Because the fact is what he looked like was the last thing I was concerned about in that moment. I didn’t care who he had voted for in the last election. I didn’t care if he was conservative or liberal. I didn’t care about his beliefs or his convictions. His lifestyle, his charities, his political views . . . nothing mattered except one thing. 

He was kind. 

Scott and I were scared in ways we didn’t know was possible as we brought our young, frail, and very sick child into the man in the white coat’s emergency room. He was the rotating doctor in charge on the wing that evening. He could have easily dismissed us as one more patient he had to deal with. He could have rushed in and out with an attitude of busyness. He could have simply looked at the diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes, thought to himself “Here we go again”, and gone through the steps of treating a sick boy. 

The man in the white coat did none of those things. 

Instead, he came into our small patient room. He saw two parents who were stricken with grief over their child. He saw the look in our eyes of panic. He saw a mother who was drowning. 

So the man in the white coat stops. He smiles. He puts the chart down and leans against the wall, casually crossing one ankle over the other. “Where are you from?” he asks softly. 

“Quite a drive in a rainstorm like this.” 

“I’m sorry to hear about your son’s diagnosis.”

And then the words that would start turning everything around – 

“I want you to know we’re going to do this right. Your little boy is going to have to endure a lifetime of shots and hospital visits from now on. We want to make sure that he starts off well.”

The man in the white coat carefully explains to us what they will do that night. No holding Hugh down kicking and screaming to get an IV in. “We’ll take our time,” he says. “We will bring in a specialist in helping children through this process.” 

He tells us that they will be careful with Hugh. That they want this to be a positive experience for him and that the hospital doesn’t need to be a scary place. He assures us that everything the nurses and doctors do will be to the end goal of getting Hugh healthy and safe. “Your son will be ok,” the man in the white coat says. “We will make sure of it.” And he did. 

I think about him at least once a week. 

Sometimes I close my eyes and think of him as I’m sitting on the floor of a family’s home. The mother is telling me she doesn’t have any money. The dad has gone to jail. Drug use is obvious and normal in their life. What would the man in the white coat do?

He would show kindness. He wouldn’t lecture or criticize. He would listen. He would do it right. 

Or I picture him when I become overwhelmed. When Type 1 Diabetes seems to be winning. When I just don’t want to do it anymore. 

The man in the white coat told us we would be ok. 

There are even times I picture him when the world seems dark and angry. When I start to wonder if any human being alive can be kind, I close my eyes and standing there is the man in the white coat. He was kind. 

I’ve probably created an image over the years in my mind of who the man in the white coat is. I’m probably mixing in a little of my imagination with a little bit of Jesus and a dash of who I hope to be. But man – if we could all just strive to be that kind of person. The person who helps instead of hurts. The person who listens instead of argues. The person who sees someone drowning and reaches down a hand – no questions asked. 

Because the truth is, the man in the white coat COULD be all of us. If we stopped asking whose side are you on, if we quit hurrying around, if we put kindness before accusations. 

In fact, I bet there’s a white coat hanging around your house somewhere and you’ve just forgotten about it. Go ahead – Reach way back into your closet and find your old and tattered white coat (or pink or navy or glittery or whatever floats your boat). Slip into it – doesn’t it feel good to put it on, kind of like you should have been wearing it all along? Doesn’t it fit you like a glove? Don’t you feel like yourself now that you’re wearing it again?

Now go admire yourself in the mirror. Do a few turns and check yourself out. Wow, that white coat looks good on you. 

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