When Words Fail

I found myself in the shower praying again. Its a habit I developed almost 4 years ago when Ash and I began our first days of this transplant journey together. It was the only place I found to be quiet or safe or private. The habit stuck with me long after we made it home. I've continued to find peace as I stand with the water running down my face. Its usually the place I cry my hardest and pray the loudest.

I can't seem to find the words to pray what I want to say. I'm not even sure I know what I want to say the Lord anymore. I just know I want to talk to Him. So I stand under the water and wait. Wait for words to come and some days the do and some days they don't. Honestly, the last time I verbalized to Him what I wanted to say I stopped as soon as the words fell out of my mouth. I gasped and cried and hated myself for what I found myself saying. I'm going to share those thoughts with you tonight. Share them only because I don't know how I feel about the way I'm feeling and so spitting them onto this screen may help me learn to accept the new place, the horribly familiar place I have found myself in again.

As I prayed for the Lord to prepare the path, the hearts, the family...I stopped. Realizing in that moment that I hated myself for praying such things. Yet, how else am I supposed to pray? What else would a mother do who is watching the very life of her daughter teeter on the edge of life and death? Knowing that without the words of this prayer being spoken that she may actually leave my arms and go on to His? Who does this? Who prays for such things? How disgusting is this place in my life that I am currently living in? I don't have the words. I can't find them? How do I pray that another mother in her worst moments would have the heart to share her child with mine? How do I pray that my worst nightmares become hers instead? What kind of person does this?

I am broken. So very broken. Words fail me tonight. I am empty and my prayers are hollow. My heart aches and I am ashamed that I would even ask the Father to allow my daughter to live and another's to die. I hate transplant. I hate transplant hell. Its truly where I have found us again. Yet, its the only chance she has left. Its the only life she's ever known. The only way to restore to her what she knew as happiness.

I sit across the room from our sweet, precious Ashley tonight. No longer allowed to have my recliner pulled close to her bed. I can stand over her and kiss her tiny hands, rub her swollen feet, touch her long hair but I can't hold her. The only thing I could do to feel close to her the last 5 weeks was to lie next to her at night and watch her breathe. Tonight all I see is the rise and fall of her chest as the machine that has taken the place of my recliner forces air into those tiny lungs. How did this happen? Did the last 36 hours truly happen? Did the last 5 weeks really and truly take place?

God, please restore our life. Please take us back to where we are loved. Please allow us to sleep in our rooms and not these in this PICU. Please let me walk the halls of our home checking on our children each night and not the halls of this hospital as I wake. I miss home. I miss Dave. I miss Blake and Allie. I miss Ashley Kate. I miss my grateful heart. I miss the peace I find inside the walls of our home. I miss the laughter from the play room. I miss the noise of the game. I miss the silliness of our family. I miss the safety I find in being close to Dave. I miss the knowledge that inside her body rests the priceless pieces of another's and I wonder if it will ever hold such a gift again.