Oh The Dreaded Waiting

I hate waiting. Exactly zero people in my life would say I am a patient waiter. We are five long weeks into the waiting (for my sister to WAKE UP) and at the same time the waiting has just begun.

Kate has been moved to a coma emergence program as of Wednesday and now the waiting has officially started. Medically she is no longer in the diagnostic stage. They’ve treated her for some things that could have contributed to her initial symptoms and now we wait. We wait for her brain to heal. We wait for Kate to be restored to our family. We wait for Gods timing. We wait.

I’ve been asked a lot (I guess because I’ve taken a somewhat public stage to ramble, meaning this blog) about how I could stay so hopeful and positive. My immediate reaction is “I’m not always”. But then I think about all of the things that have gone right the last five weeks. I’d like to share a few because honestly it would be SO easy to have tunnel vision on Kate’s health status and just give up. But we don’t live in a vacuum and there are lots of other things and people at play in this situation.

• People have shown up all over the country and world to donate to Kate’s husband and kiddos. It’s shocking and so encouraging.
• People send me things. I’ll be a puddle on floor and just be sobbing for God to show me He’s there and He still cares. I literally stand up to get the mail that I heard being delivered and walk outside to a journal and Starbucks gift card from one of my besties. Or a gift from someone I went to high school with that I haven’t talked to much in the last ten years. Or I open my email and have gift certificates. It’s just nuts.
• Some family members helped D and I buy a van. They paid the down payment. We did not have money to buy a van because we had two perfectly good cars that were both payed off. But when you have a conversation with your sister a year ago and she says “if something ever happens to me don’t send my kids to daycare” you go out and you buy the van. And people who love her so much help.
• We have had people helping to watch my niece and nephew during the summer as we have been/are in crisis mode. One of those people recently lost one of her babies a few short weeks before he was supposed to be born. She has offered a day a week to watch Kate’s babies, to fill her horrendously empty crib with our feisty almost two year old and call it healing for her. What?
• I have friends from college who were in my major (Family Studies and Community Development) who went on to be Child Life Specialists. One of them works at the hospital Kate is at. She’s going to help us figure out how to make this journey easier for the little ones in Kate’s life. Ive been shocked by the connections I have at the hospital and the strings they are pulling for Kate to get extra exceptional care.
• The food (and gift cards!). People (especially my freaking awesome neighbors) just keep bringing us food. Like almost daily. We have been on this street for not even one year and they just love us so well.
• The most humbling of these is people have committed to being with and praying over Kate. I’m not talking about praying from their homes (which we also really appreciate and need). I’m talking about hauling their rears in traffic downtown and paying $8+ every time and holding my sisters hand and begging God on her behalf. And I’m talking several times a week. They could not ever know what this does for our family. They could not know the depth of gratitude that we feel as they tell us “we are with you for the long hall. As long as Kate’s here we are coming to pray”. Excuse me, what? This is nothing short of evidence that God is with us because these people are His and they are not leaving when it is really easy to leave. It’s easy to stop talking about it with us. It’s easy to be awkward around us. It is hard to support people in the midst of their grief but it is nothing short of miraculous to voluntarily enter into it.

I would say this is why I’m hopeful. Our family has not been deserted. We have been supported beyond our dreams and it has blown us away. “But God! We still want Kate back”, we chant! So we wait. Even if we are terrible at it. We just wait.

<<In other news, Kate had been encouraging me to buy some plants. I knew which ones she had at her house so I just bought them (typical little sister!). So here it is, Kate’s corner. >>