What if…

The ‘what ifs’ will kill you, won’t they?

Dealing with my daughter who suffers from mental illness, those ‘what ifs’ creep in on a daily, if not hour-by-hour basis.  What if she was easy, taking life as it comes?  What if she was an optimist, instead of seeing the world as wholly against her?  What if she understood that the rules are there to help her, not hurt her.  What if she understood that WE are there to help her, not hurt her?

Since I work with children, I am faced with these ‘what ifs’ at the hospital as well.  A mother told me the other day that her eleven-year-old daughter “is a pleaser, and she only wants to do what’s right, so she won’t tell you if she’s in pain.”  Can you imagine?  I can’t.

Yesterday, though, I was faced with a ‘what if’ that literally sucker punched me right in the gut.  A twelve-year-old boy, who was as yellow as an egg yolk because his liver has failed him.  As I read through the chart my heart dropped further and further into my chest; all the same psychiatric diagnoses as Sweet Pea, and the descriptions of his behavior were uncannily similar to hers.  And the reason for his liver disease?  Unknown toxic injury.  In other words, he was likely poisoned.  Mother in prison; father nowhere to be found; the child now a ward of the state.

And I thought, “what if?”  What if that was my Sweet Pea lying on the table, poisoned; alone in the world and dying.

What if God hadn’t chosen me for this task?

What if I didn’t get to deal with her moods and fits and refusals and insomnia and hatred?

What if I didn’t know her laugh and wit and intellect and love?

What if…

Advertisement