We are grateful to have returned home to Abbotsford with Georgia just a couple of hours ago (it is 6:30pm as I write). Kandy and I were nervous as morning approached, knowing that what existed behind Georgia’s surgical dressing would soon be revealed. We were to meet with Georgia’s surgeon at the ophthalmology clinic at 8:30am. Georgia had mostly broken sleep throughout the night, as did Kandy, who stayed with her at the hospital. Georgia had awakened this morning with the fear and the pain that we had anticipated. Her response to these dynamics–the fear and the pain–was to refuse to open either of her eyes. Who could blame her? Every time she does so anywhere in that neighborhood on Oak Street, people want to poke and prod her, shine intense light, or drop burning solutions directly onto her wounded peeper.
We get it, Georgia.
Georgia’s eyes remained resolutely shut throughout the morning, right up to the moment that our porter–the man appointed to escort us through the maze of hospital departments en route to Georgia’s surgeon’s office–arrived. Upon hearing his greeting, Georgia, distracted by an unfamiliar voice and a gentle Filipino accent, immediately forgot her nocturnal mission; she swiftly turned her head toward him and opened her left eye to see who was there–her right eye remained locked away behind a barracks of gauze, layered white tape and dense, perforated plastic. Like her mother, it is not possible–not possible–for her to be within earshot of a stranger and allow for that unpalatable noun to remain dangling in the air between them. Like her mother, she would simply short circuit–think, smoking ears, rapidly blinking eyes, crisis of meaning kind of stuff–if it were required of her that she not speak to the Yet Unknown Other in her presence. The man that Georgia glimpsed with a start, lacked the physical stature that she has grown accustomed to associating–however erroneously–with men. After all, her father is 6’3, and, as a matter of pure coincidence, a good many of his friends are men of near-equal or greater height.
I’ll invite you to hold that thought.
Off we headed in the direction of the ophthalmology department, and Georgia, in her typical style, persisted, from one end of the 20 minute walkabout to the other, with an ardent and compulsive attempt at verifying the man’s name, age and, of course, favorite colour.
We didn’t get to the colour part.
“What’s him name, Daddy?” Then, quizzically, “How old him is?” And, then (he and Kandy walking slightly ahead) “Hey, what yer name?! Uhm, what yer name?!” Now, more loudly, “How old you is!? How old you are?!” She was beginning to sound a little bit Yoda, a little bit inner-city Brooklyn. It wasn’t too long before I picked up on the association buzzing around in Georgia’s head, which was progressively revealing itself amid her gesticulations and unrelenting inquiries. Our porter, whose name we came to know is Paul, was, as a matter of fact, a man in his mid-fifties. He also, as a matter of more obvious fact to Georgia, was the very same height as her mother: five foot two and one half inches, to be precise. Upon learning Paul’s age, and doing my best to curb the direction of the awkward conversation I could see percolating before us, I stated to Georgia, “Georgia, this man is Mr. Paul. He is fifty six years old” Paul, briefly breaking his focus from Kandy’s uncannily similar and gleeful onslaught of inquiries, looked back and smiled in Georgia’s direction. With Georgia having learned Paul’s–to her, merely supposed–age, at once I could see, fiercely approaching, a moment that I would have preferred to be elsewhere for. “No him not, Daddy! Him not fipty six. That’s silly!–him too sho…”
Pause with me, if you would.
Do you consider yourself a sane person? Let me ask you this then. Have you ever, whilst strolling down a long subterranean hallway–a hallway clad thickly in concrete and rebar, so far from nature, that all that exists to illumine your way are the humming ballasts of fluorescent light so neatly lining the space overhead; nary a window or door in sight–ever heard the words “Look at the pretty bird!” loudly leave your lips; leave them as though you had spontaneously developed the most rapid onset of Tourette Syndrome in the annals of psychology? Until 8:45am this morning, neither had I. I could see poor Paul’s gait slow a moment as his ears tried making sense of the semantic soup clumsily passing betwixt the strange father and daughter duo that strolled behind him. Perhaps his momentary downward gaze was an effort at covertly scanning the chart he carried to verify that it was indeed ophthalmology, not, psychiatry, to which he was to escort this bedraggled crew: Georgia, with her now matted, mangy long hair, green and white pinstriped hospital gown, psychedelic, bellbottom hippie jammy pants, bloody pirate patch and missing front teeth; Kandy, with a case of verbal diarrhea that even I, her loving husband, considered notable–brought on, as always, by exhaustion and fatigue; I, calm, quiet, but for my new clinical condition, looking as though I had just completed a week long bender with a college fraternity–who could possibly indict Paul for taking just one more look at that good old chart? My only remaining hope for Paul in the moment, now that all dignity had left our hallway along with my pretty, ethereal, bird, was that my utterance had been loud enough to dampen the landing of the “…rt!” that our little angel’s stream of consciousness had so boldly stuck. What a way to pass the time.
Against all odds, we made it to the ophthalmology clinic. Paul departed from us with a wave and a look of gracious bemusement–I hope, to go have a coffee and to speak with more brightly lit beings than we.
Once at the clinic, we were directed to wait in a room for Georgia’s surgeon and whichever of the resident fellows studying under him would be joining us for the procedures. Georgia began to retreat inward once again, losing all enthusiasm for the moment. Upon seeing her surgeon, her countenance quickly shifted and we were once again faced with a child who begged of us, simply, to take her home. Tired of her I.V., tired of having her eye cut and sutured, tired of being touched by strangers, tired of burning drops and meds, tired of laser beam lights, tired of global pressure tests, tired of pain…tired of it all. She curled up into Kandy and sobbed once again “Pweese take me home, Momma…I go home now…I go home now…” Georgia’s surgeon blessed us all in this moment. “Have you all had breakfast yet? I think it best if you went for a little wander about. Why don’t you let her settle, get some food and come back in, say, 20 minutes?” During the moments preceding his invitation, we had at least been able to remove the patch from Georgia’s eye, which remained determinedly closed.
This did it. I asked Georgia if she’d like to go on my shoulders and get a muffin with Momma and Daddy. “Yes, my would!” she cried. Off we went to enjoy a more peaceful encounter, praying that we’d be able to coax her into opening her wounded eye during our brief time away. She persisted in keeping it closed, however, and upon returning to the clinic, we were forced to restrain her so that a numbing agent could be administered to her eye with the intention of dulling her pain and encouraging her to allow her surgeon to have a look inside. Once the agent had taken effect, Georgia opened her eye to reveal the remarkable work of her surgeon’s hands. With apparent geometric perfection, a series of approximately twenty translucent sutures were visible, lining the entire circumference of her cornea. The new tissues had been received; blended life; that of Georgia’s remaining vessel and that of the poor child who, mere hours before, had passed away. Blended emotion: joy and sorrow. Heart broken open, all in a moment. Georgia’s surgeon had left the room following her restraining, in order to let her calm down. As soon as she had opened her eye, I proceeded to snap pictures as closely and as accurately as I could in case she once again retreated upon his return to the room. When he arrived in the room, she greeted him with a smile, but quickly turned back, burrowing into Kandy, who once again attempted to comfort Georgia in effort at maintaining her willing presence with us. As her surgeon’s hands approached her again, she winced, refusing to allow him to see her eye. “I think we’ll just have to leave her. I caught a little glimpse and I think I’m pleased with what I saw” he stated. Following his remarks, I mentioned that I had just moments before been able to catch some images of the eye that I thought might help in his assessment. Upon seeing them, his voice lifted and a smile graced his face. He was so caught up in the moment that he seemed to lose that familiar and necessary professional veneer, “Oh, I’m just so delighted! These are wonderful. It looks lovely, just lovely” “I’m so happy, well done Georgia–well done, my angel!” Those of you who have had to endure the rigors of your own incompetency, your helplessness amid the glaring presentation of your child’s/spouse’s/parent’s/friend’s obvious need, will know well the relief that overcomes you as you behold the sheer joy of a doctor/surgeon/psychologist/teacher when witnessing the significant progress they so clearly see embodied in your loved one. These are moments to cherish; moments to hold and be fully present to–for we know there are many moments with other kinds of requirements to come.
On Friday morning, we will return to the clinic for more examinations. Then we will learn how to look for signs of tissue rejection and infection, which are now more imminent considerations than before. We have returned to a medication regimen of drops every two hours and are praying for stamina along the way–for Georgia and our entire family. Kandy and I are comforted by the knowledge that we do not come in to this next chapter so completely naive as we did in the first. We are also comforted that we can say the same of Georgia, who grows more resilient and more spacious through all of these trials, reminding us that joy is at hand in the very next moment and that the opportunities for redemption of pain and of struggle are there, if only we’ll take the risk of relationship with whomever is present. At last, we’re comforted by the presence of God and all of His agents, both witting and unwitting, so near to us as family and community–any of you who read these words presently, and so many besides, whom we encounter along the way. Reception of tissue; reception of life; reception of one another.
Thank you, on behalf of Georgia and the rest of the White family,
Pete
Georgia’s surgeon just came to greet Kandy and I in the waiting area to inform us of a successful two and a half hour surgery (9:40pm). “That went very well–we’ll have to let her eye settle overnight and I’d like to see you at the clinic in the morning to assess her. She’ll be quite uncomfortable, but they’ll take good care of her on the ward.” What a lovely human being he is, and how thankful we are that some among us pursue their vocation with such fervor. “It is truly an honour to work for Georgia” he stated.
Thanks be to God, and thanks to you, for your loving interest in Georgia’s journey. I’ll provide an update in the morning following her assessment. “Ring the bells that still can ring/forget your perfect offering”…The next leg of Georgia’s journey has begun.
Shalom, friends,
Pete (on behalf of Kandy and the kids)
Moments ago we laid Georgia down in the operating room for her third eye surgery. At 2:30 this afternoon Kandy received a call from the pediatric optometry clinic at BC Children’s to let us know that appropriate donor tissues had arrived–much sooner than any of us had anticipated. After verifying when Georgia had last eaten, Kandy was informed that we would need to be in Vancouver by 5:30pm to begin preparing Georgia for surgery. Kandy called me at the office in between clients to inform me of the news, whereupon I apologized to my gracious client who was awaiting their 3pm appointment and informed them that I would have to reschedule. I sent them on their way, cancelled my 4:00pm and headed home to retrieve Kandy and Georgia.
Georgia slept quietly in the car, and–we’re thankful–had a good rest for the entire trip to the hospital. While she slept, Kandy and I prayed for the family who had lost their child and would be aiding our daughter through the gift of prospective enhancements to her damaged eye.
May God bless them in the midst of their agony and may He bless them for their generosity and compassion.
Given the suddenness of these events, none of us have had time to prepare for the call that we received today. Georgia was, thus, quite confused when she woke up in my arms as we walked toward the doors to the surgical area of BC Children’s. “Why we at the hat hospital Daddy?” she asked. The “Hat Hospital” is how she’s learned to distinguish the OR from the pediatric optometry clinic–prior to surgery, you’re given a pretty spectacular hat, after all. With her little arms wrapped around my neck and her face so near that her button-nose bumped mine with each step, I smiled at her and told her that we were here to help her hurt eye a little more. Georgia smiled back at me and, to my relief, said, “Oh, my getting more help?” I assured her that this would be the case. Georgia showed no signs of apprehension regarding the sudden proceedings that our afternoon had entailed. Our kind nurse, Lynn, focused on Georgia as if she were her own. Lynn asked Georgia if she would like to pick the colour of her surgical gown. “Yes, my would!” Georgia exclaimed with delight–she chose green. We were the only family in the pre-op area. Georgia put on her gown without protest. A green little cherub with sandy, curly blonde hair and blue eyes. Adorable. Georgia played cheerfully with Kandy while I submitted to Lynn that we might all have an easier time if we got Georgia’s IV going out here in the play area, rather than waiting until the OR. Given the growing mental association that Georgia has developed between the OR and physical restraint, I was concerned that she would become inconsolable once again if she had to undergo the procedure in environs that she has begun to fear. Graciously, Lynn petitioned the anesthesiologist on our behalf, who was agreeable to the adaptation. Kandy and I distracted Georgia on her left while I blocked her view of the insertion which she underwent without any worry. What a gift.
With that, Kandy was able to carry Georgia into the OR this time, given our assurance that no restraint would be needed; simply a kiss on the forehead while they inserted the anesthetic to her previously prepared IV. Kandy kissed Georgia goodbye and came out to greet me. Throughout the entire ordeal, not a single tear was shed by parent or child. Here we wait whilst Georgia’s window is under repair; wait, with gratitude and thanks for good healthcare; competent surgeons; kind, skillful nurses; bountiful, loving community and a Maestro who orchestrates beautiful symphonies out of brokenness and frailty. There is a crack in everything–that’s how the light get’s in.
Grace and peace to you all, friends. Thank you for your prayers.
Love, Pete and family
Grace, it’s a name for a girl; it’s also a thought that changed the world (U2)
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (St. Paul: 2 Corinthians 12:9)
Georgia’s middle name is Grace. It is one of those terms that brings ease and peace upon an initial hearing–the lightening of burden. Georgia is that kind of little person. Like her mother, she draws you in to shared space; in to vulnerability and out of yourself. She will do this for the rest of her life–it’s simply who she is. The name fits. The Georgia part, well, that is an homage to the warmth, hospitality and deep-rootedness of the south; to half of her heritage; to a region from whence her mother hails and to a people whom we as a family, cherish. The Grace part–that has become a hope realized. Such a beautiful dynamic; such a beautiful force. That’s Georgia.
Just yesterday, at BC Children’s Hospital, without any forethought or calculation–simply by virtue of being herself–Georgia once again became the human catalyst for connection, this time in the waiting room in the ophthalmology department. As is so often the case, the space was transformed by her–and her mother’s… they’re quite a duo–presence; from a space simply containing twenty-some-odd individuals and their respective isolated scenarios, to a community of persons mutually committed to the hearing and carrying of one another’s stories; to an open, benevolent exchange of authentic emotion and goodwill. The space became our space; my story became our story. Georgia approached every person in the room–every person–and said “My Georgia, what’s yer name?” She then proceeded to ask them, unblushingly–as though this is what humans were meant to do–why they were there. One by one she issued her summons: “Will you see me? Will you let me see you?”
Grace.
As we’ve been walking this journey out together as a family, day after day we are taken to the end of our personal resources and beyond; into moments of stark awareness of our helplessness. Tragedy is like that: it doesn’t produce human helplessness; it reveals it. Most of us are suspended–dangling–from what we fancy to be stalwart, many-braided ropes. The inscriptions that we so painstakingly write on each of our ropes reflect our multifarious delusions; delusions we’ve long cultivated in efforts toward self assurance–more whistling in the dark. Some of us have written ‘Entitlement’ on our rope, others, ‘Race’, ‘Earned’, ‘Citizen’, ‘Faith’, ‘Net Worth’, ‘Gender’, ‘Married’, or ‘Reputation’. Still others of us have written–and this one is particularly common–‘Good Person’. Dangling from each of our ropes, we twist and sway, blown about in the cold breeze of fear, while focused, doggedly, on our supposed self sufficiency and our strength; feigned imperviousness to pain, to suffering, to brokenness, to weakness and limitation. We in the West are especially skilled at rendering such delusion. What we fancy to be sturdy ropes, of course, are actually wispy strands, finer than hair; strands that will eventually, in each of our cases, be broken by the overbearing weight of the world we inhabit. Reality is unyielding to our sentiments, no matter how ardently we hold to them. The list of options for snapping our respective hair-thin strands is innumerable and is as long as human history itself. No civilization, certainly no individual, has ever been able, ultimately, to avoid them. Whether financial collapse or mental illness; whether marital discord or heart failure; whether addiction, cancer, or, in the end, death, I would submit to you that we haven’t overcome ourselves or the world, Friend–not by a long-shot. We are all helpless. We are all, on our own, weak in the face of our broken world and its unending pressures.
But that’s not the end of our story. It proves, paradoxically, to be our beginning. When we hear the twang and pluck of our string now snapped–as we break away and fall, flailing and panicked into our new unknown–there is another cord to clutch; a vine. It is as dense and as solid as industrial-grade cable, immeasurably long and descended from heaven’s heights. On this vine there is only a single inscription, one indelibly emblazoned by the hand of The Giver. A resolute declaration: grace.
Helplessness and weakness have always been the most vivid junctures for the grace of God in human life. Perhaps this dynamic is visible to you in the new life embarked upon by that friend of yours who finally came to the end of themselves–the one who lived in addiction for a decade and was, at last, taken in by a community of fellow sufferers; embraced, just as they were. Perhaps it comes to you amid your astonished discovery that your neighbor–the one you thought had their life so neatly sewn together–suffers from debilitating anxiety, just like you. Maybe it arrived for you in the (previously inconceivable) joy that you discovered life to hold following the death of your spouse–the love of your life, without whom, you thought existence and identity to be impossible. Perhaps it is there in the face of a friend who sheds a tear with you as you confess a long-held secret, the shame of which held you prisoner within yourself for years. In each of these cases and in so many besides, grace abounds in the midst of our weakness; on the fringe ends of our capacity. It bids us, “Now, grow and live and thrive!” It bids that our admission of brokenness–so far from spelling the end of us–be the start of collaborations toward transformation and renewal. God’s omnipotent hand, extended to us–adorned with a work glove. Grace isn’t neat. Given the nature of the case–given how busted up our world and our place in it has become–it can’t be. Grace doesn’t negate grieving, or pain, or bewilderment, but it does redeem each of these. Every tear and every worry, grace, it turns out, employs as fertilizer in the soil of human flourishing.
When all of this happened to Georgia, I lacked space for it. I didn’t have space within myself for the prospect of my little girl possibly losing her eye. I didn’t have space for the prospect of her being blind in any way. I did not–in many ways I still do not–have space for the bi-hourly inflictions of pain that she has to endure at my own hands. Each of these burdens, which we rightly rail against in the many corners of our soul, identifying the injustice and frank wrongness of them, are matters that we grieve deeply.
Grieving is a way of telling the truth, though. It’s the way we establish clearings within ourselves for all of those weights and all of those pains that reality so unapologetically confronts us with–those that were previously inconceivable to us; those that we formerly denied the existence of or were otherwise ignorant to. Grieving properly–with intention and honesty and courage–is a consolidating human experience. In grief, we are presented with an opportunity to become more spacious and malleable people; to expand inwardly and outwardly while all of our parts are gathered to us along the way.
We and our children have been presented another fork along life’s proverbial road: down one path, what lay in store are more acts of delusion–rather than grieving, we can hide or we can harden, denying or begrudging Georgia’s new reality, likely doing more violence to her along the way. Along the other path, we are invited to locate the courage to look wide-eyed into our reality, with all of its overwhelming potentialities. Where we have risked doing so, we have encountered God’s grace. Never tidily, never as we might have imagined. Mostly in hindsight, we can see the way that The Maestro is working things together in the aftermath of Georgia’s initial injury, in ways that bring life and hope to her and to so many others. God’s grace is there, helping us find the strength to walk through the door into life’s next room. What is next for Georgia–and for us as we journey with her–is a corneal graft. We have been told that caring for young corneal graft recipients is especially difficult; that the rate of rejection is higher in children of her age and that the rejections typically occur in subtle, often difficult to detect, ways. It is going to continue to be a difficult year for Georgia. Our rope has broken, and we are clutching to the vine of grace so benevolently extended to us in the midst of our weakness. We find it amid moments of laughter and in the continued generosity of community. We find it in the tears shed by so many of you who have felt our periodic anguish and are grieving with us. We see it surging through the horrible realities involved in receiving tissues from a yet unknown donor–one who will lose life through more broken-world tragedy, long before they ever should have breathed their last; that their parents, whomever they are, would allow for the body of their child to aid another child in possibly regaining sight in an eye gone dark. Grace bursting through darkness, bringing the hope of fuller life and sight with it.
It seems to me that the health of a community consists in its collective willingness to tell the truth about its weaknesses. Whether a family or an institution, a small business or a nation–a community that has sight only for its strengths is destined to wither. Solidarity shows up when we risk honesty; when we risk the whole story with one another. I am thankful that this community has allowed us to tell the truth about our weakness; that through grace, you have created a clearing in which Georgia’s story can play out in generative ways–in ways that become our story.
Until one’s rope breaks, it remains impossible to understand the words in the second quote included above. A man named Paul–a man well acquainted with both pain and suffering, often writing his letters while in infirm or in prison (or both)–wrote those words. I recall reading those words as a young boy, wanting to know them in greater depth. Despite the fact that my family had experienced loss before–our rope broke when, within a swift twenty four hour period, a syndrome called Waterhouse–Friderichsen came to steal the life of my baby sister when she was just nine months old (I was eight years of age)–the language of power being perfected in weakness, of grace being sufficient for me, felt more like a platitude. It remained theoretical. Some hopes precede inevitability, however. In order for this particular hope to be granted–in order for it to transform from mere theory into knowledge–one must first be brought to the end of themselves. Discovering one’s end–one’s ultimate weakness–is a harrowing experience. It happens, also, to be one that we all will have ample opportunity to encounter in this life. “Power being perfected in weakness” proves, in the end, to be a pretty good bargain. When the power at issue comes from Love Himself, it can be trusted. He is at work, making things better–making things new and allowing for us to embrace our weakness along life’s way. We thank you for your help along the way, Friend. We want you to know that little Georgia is growing in her experience of her second name. Just a few days ago, she greeted me in the morning as I was still rubbing the sleep away from my eyes. With a skip in her step, she approached me and proclaimed, “It is a glorious day, Daddy!”
Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace, it’s the name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything
Grace, she’s got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She’s got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things
Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
(U2)
On Friday, March 4, we travelled with Georgia to Vancouver Children’s Hospital for her second surgery. The aims for this surgery were threefold: to extract her broken lens and cataract; to insert an artificial lens; and, to repair or remove several sutures that had come loose along the vertical laceration caused by her injury.
Kandy and I were both grateful and hopeful as we ventured in the direction of Vancouver. For several days we had been awaiting a call from the kind receptionist for Georgia’s surgeon, who was to inform us of when her next operation would occur. We had been told to anticipate a call one or two days before Georgia’s scheduled surgery, so we had been trying to keep as loose a schedule as life would allow until then. Time is allotted across the full range of specializations at the BC Children’s Hospital O.R. Accordingly, our surgeon and all of the other specialists work under the constraint of these necessary limitations on time and space. If Georgia was to ever have the hope of seeing again, this surgery would be the one to provide the most promise. Given the damage that had occurred within, it was not possible for Georgia’s eye to transmit sensory input back to her optic nerve–too many obstructions in the way and too many corners to bend. Once her damaged lens was extracted and an unblemished, clear lens, inserted, an open pathway could, in part, be restored in her eye.
For the weeks since Georgia’s surgery, she has had to endure a rigorous regimen of painful medication administrations directly to her damaged eye. During each administration she requires intense physical restraint; we must hold her prone, facing upward, while I attempt to release drops into Georgia’s right eye, which she clenches tightly like a vise each time. As she writhes and screams, the trauma that she is experiencing sounds out to us, pounding and reverberating against our bodies and our every parental instinct. Many of you who are parents–and many of you, besides, who have held complete love in your heart for another–have had to endure similar trials. Our hearts are broken for you. On each of these occasions, astonished and gasping, Georgia exclaims how badly it burns while we persist with what are bewildering inflictions of power to her. While we have to engage her in this process every two of her waking hours, we are fortified in the moment by the hope of her seeing once again.
When we arrived in the pre-op area on Friday, we were greeted by the kind smiles and competent compassion of the intake nurses. Moments later, we were approached by the lovely nurse who would guide us through the day’s events. Shortly after we were situated in the staging area, our nurse sadly informed us that we would have to administer two drops to Georgia’s eye every 10 minutes so that the necessary degree of pupil dilation could occur prior to surgery. This came as a surprise to us; we had hoped to be able to simply distract and divert attention away from Georgia’s focus on the intimidating environs that encompassed her there. As Georgia received the announcement that we would have to give her more drops, her body stilled and a focused burden appeared in place of the familiar smile that had, moments before, so fittingly adorned her face. Her eyes darted back and forth in a fleeting quest to capture an idea to outwit the big people in the room. Her hurry for an alternative was crushing to witness. She feigned composure, nodding hopefully, as her broken toddler-ese poured out: “We do them to-later, Mommy? We do them in ten more minutes? We not do them now? We do them later, Daddy. We do them later? We do the drops at home?…” Our nurse was notably shaken by Georgia’s fear and resistance as we three bound her body to administer the medications. With much prying, as the fourth drop found its way into the tiny slit between Georgia’s clamped eyelids, her nurse hardened, stating, “This is too much–she’s being traumatized. I’m not doing this anymore. No more drops–they can give them to her when she’s sedated if they wish.” And with that, the poor woman left our presence to gather herself and attend to the rest of her duties. She was wonderful.
It pained us that Georgia’s serenity and her enjoyment of simply being with Momma and Daddy had to be interrupted in those moments. This was not the way that we had hoped to guide her into the process of her second surgery. To follow the drops, the surgical staff brought in a warming mat to help increase Georgia’s core body temperature for her procedure. Kandy sat with her on the bed as the device hummed and puffed warm air all around Georgia’s little frame. Following a quick debriefing with the anesthesiologist and a signing of the parental release forms, it was time for me to put on my gown and carry Georgia, once again, into the O.R.
Having been in that same environment a mere three and a half weeks prior, Georgia was savvy to the trade tactics of all of the surgical staff. They invited her to blow bubbles while I held her toward me to block her view of the i.v. syringe that an anesthesiologist resident attempted to insert into a tiny vein on her hand behind us. The chief anesthesiologist–the kind, jocular man who had, just moments before, come to prepare us in the pre-op area–stood behind my left shoulder while holding Georgia’s arm to steady it for his resident. Feeling his grasp tighten, Georgia was alerted to the clandestine operation occurring behind us. She bent and jerked in an attempt at catching a glimpse of the men as their efforts became more labored and explicit. The bubbles that the female O.R. nurse had been blowing on Georgia’s other side as a diversion had quickly lost their appeal. I raised my hand in a direct attempt at blocking Georgia’s sight of the insertion, which irritated her further: “No Daddy! What they doin’?” My efforts eventually failed and Georgia caught fleeting sight of the syringe. With that, she proceeded to give the chief anesthesiologist two determined kicks right in the plums. Suffice it to say that his own pain increased his sense of urgency about the moment. Wincing, wide-eyed and hunched forward, through clenched teeth he suggested to his resident that greater haste might be a good thing for everyone involved. Despite the man’s evident good will toward my daughter, I have noted in hindsight, the complete absence of remorse that I felt for him at the time. Georgia had begun to escalate into a full panic as she called for Kandy. As the pasty white anesthetic crept up the line into her system, Georgia slurred and struggled against the drug’s incapacitating effects. It is a horrible experience to see the spirit of your child so forcefully subdued; despite one’s awareness of the plain necessity of the procedure, it strikes you as a violent contradiction to life and to every parental sensibility within you. I laid Georgia on the table as the last vestiges of access to her faculties dwindled. She finally dropped into unconsciousness and laid there motionless. As I had two times previously in Georgia’s life, I kissed her on the forehead, told her I loved her, and left her in the capable hands of so many strangers.
I found Kandy sitting expectantly in the parent’s waiting area. The air in that room is perpetually dense; the gravity of concern and the degree of anguish there are palpable. Passing by the churning guts and furrowed brows of our peers, we wrote our names and numbers on the access board and left the room in search of lighter environs. We were advised by Georgia’s surgeon to anticipate at least two and a half hours before the procedures would be completed. We grabbed two coffees and each passed the time in our customary manner of self-assurance: I wrote and worked, periodically exchanging nervous smiles with passers-by. I glimpsed them across a momentary existential chasm: the seeming blitheness of their far-off banter–complaints about the lunch menu and where to travel during spring break–so distant from the harrowing draw that I felt, calling all of my interest back in the direction of the room in which our daughter lay. Kandy, ever-vulnerable, set her sights on any willing conversational target; her most engaging participant, the ear/nose/throat surgeon whom she had just witnessed admonish the glaring entitlement of the mother who complained to him in the pre-op area that the surgery he was about to perform on her son–the implantation of drainage tubes–would interrupt their travel plans to Whistler. “I thought you did a wonderful job of encouraging her to think about what was truly important,” she kindly opined.
“Oh, thank you.” He replied, so clearly charmed by Kandy’s friendliness and southern warmth, “I thought maybe I was a little too direct–Now, that’s not a Vancouver accent–you’re not from around here…”
Off they continued, into the welcome distraction that Kandy so fervently sought.
At the two hour mark, Kandy and I shared a conciliatory gaze, gathered our belongings in silence, and, reaching for the other’s hand, walked quietly back toward the O.R. There we remained–there in that weight-ing room. After forty five minutes, Kandy got up to inquire with the nurse’s desk regarding whether there had been any word on Georgia from the recovery room. Twenty minutes later, Georgia’s surgeon–a gentle giant from South Africa, miraculously equipped to accomplish the impossible with the budding soul-windows of the little creatures that he is charged with caring for and curing–appeared in the corridor. With a few lumbering steps toward us he peeled off his surgeons mask, breathing deeply the first unimpeded air that he had drawn in the last three hours. He was beleaguered, but resolute. “She did well.” he said, generously, “The new lens is in.” The good news successfully conveyed, he drew in another breath and sighed while averting his eyes, “We’re going to need to get her on the list for a corneal graft–at this point, I don’t believe we have another option. The surface of her cornea has become very irregular, given everything that’s happened” He continued, “We’ll let the eye settle down a bit before determining next steps, but I think we all need to prepare for that reality. I’ll need you to bring her back to Vancouver tomorrow for a post-op examination.” Kandy and I thanked him for his focused attention to Georgia. I placed my hand on his shoulder, praying to him that he now go home and get some rest. With a grateful smile, he assured me that that would be the case.
Another forty minutes passed before we were summoned by a hospital steward: “Mr. and Mrs. White for Georgia White?” Again, awash in an ocean of uncertainty, we swam down that hallway toward the recovery room, feeling helpless amid all of the imagined versions of our reunion with our daughter.
She was asleep.
She lay there on her stomach, the left side of her face implanted deeply into her pillow. She looked broken. Her upper torso was exposed in an effort at helping her awaken from the subconscious realm she presently inhabited. The right side of her face was heavily bandaged, the gauze and the shield that covered her right eye hinting at the three hour invasion she had just endured. There was blood around the whole perimeter of her eye patch. Above her, like a guardian angel, stood Georgia’s recovery nurse–compassionate; vigilant. She shared her name with us and immediately attuned to the concerns my face evinced as I listened to the irregular ping emanating from Georgia’s heart monitor. “We expect to see those numbers after a longer surgery, Mr. White–this is the range we’re hoping for; she’s well within it–I have a popsicle for her when she wakes up.” I reminded Kandy, who stroked Georgia’s hair and back, that she would likely be incoherent and inconsolable when she came-to. We had been here before: once for her hernia operation at the age of two; the second time, just three and a half weeks ago following the initial emergency procedure performed on her eye. We wheeled her bed back to the secondary recovery area where we were reunited with our pre-op nurse–the one who had so mercifully refused to give any more drops to Georgia before surgery. It wasn’t long after our arrival there that Georgia was ripped out of her slumber by the throbbing of her new incisions–there were a total of five in addition to the sutured laceration ensuing from her initial trauma. Her globe was now more vulnerable than ever. “My eye, my eye, my eye…owe, owe, owe!” her cries grew into a crescendo of conscious clarity. She was awake. Any of you who have endured surgical procedures will be familiar with the startling suddenness that coming to your senses in such cases involves. For a three year old, there is simply no frame of reference for what one is experiencing. Total, absorbing, discomfort was all that she knew in those moments. Georgia and all of the other children lay there in those bays, paradoxically pained by the efforts just engaged in to help them.
Georgia cried for Kandy, who once again got into the bed with her. I encouraged Kandy not to try to reason with Georgia–she wanted so badly to help her out of her confusion. Eventually, Georgia was willing to take her popsicle. Her former refusal of the frozen tower of synthetic flavor now transmuted into a manic need to lick and taste and smell in a semi-conscious high. Lick she did. Desperately, eyes clenched closed…until she dozed back off to sleep, her arm slowly ratcheting the popsicle down onto her naked chest with each drifting breath. Then, startled awake by the freeze of the treat that she still gripped, she commenced licking, eyes still closed, but semi-conscious. This continued for nearly twenty minutes. I stood at Georgia and Kandy’s bedside, brimming with pride at the inner drive of the little creature I am still getting to know; her determination carrying joy and celebration into the room for her mother and I to relish.
Eventually, Georgia became more present. Still sobbing and stuttering, but now fully aware that Kandy and I were there with her and that we were about to go home to begin the next phase of her healing. She sipped more apple juice, still clenching her eyes tightly and wrapped determinedly around her Momma. As has become our custom, we stopped at the gift shop on the way out to reward her with a new stuffed animal. We spoke the range of options available to her as she still refused to open her exposed eye. She chose a pink and white cat with vibrant, caricatured eyes. We left the hospital just after 3pm. We had left home that morning just after 7am and were grateful to be headed back toward Abbotsford. Georgia drifted back into restful slumber shortly after we left the parking lot at Children’s and would remain asleep until we arrived at our friends’ home to retrieve her brother and sister nearly two hours later. Upon our arrival, she awakened and greeted her siblings with a smile and a half-opened eye: “This is my kitty, Sophia!–My got him at the hat hospital!”
On Monday, February 8, our 3 year old daughter, Georgia, had been playing merrily alone with her dolls and her stuffed animals in the living room while her older siblings were going about their nightly tasks. It was a fine evening. Noah was with me (Pete) in the shop, building a wooden bridge for a school project, and Sophia was completing some homework in the kitchen. We had all been enjoying a lovely family weekend and were preparing for the children’s grandfather to depart for the airport following his 4-day visit from Edmonton. As Grandpa and Kandy were talking in the kitchen, relishing the final minutes of his stay, a scream summoned their attention from the living room. “My headband slap me–it slap me!” shrieked Georgia. Kandy rushed in to hold Georgia, who was panicked and was in obvious pain. Kandy’s requests to see Georgia’s eye were furiously refused. “It slap me! No momma!” Georgia clenched her eyes closed in defense against any further intrusion. Grandpa and Kandy assumed the best: Georgia had bumped her eye while playing and was simply startled. As Georgia’s panic escalated, however, Kandy became increasingly concerned.
I was guiding Noah’s hand on the radial arm saw when I faintly heard Kandy’s call from beyond my earmuffs. I took off my hearing protection and turned around to see Kandy in the doorway to the garage; she was holding Georgia in her arms. She spoke emphatically: “Something has happened, Pete. I need you now. Please come.” As Noah and I dusted ourselves off and hurried into the front entryway, Kandy explained: “Something’s happened to her eye. She won’t open it. She’s bleeding from her eye.” She was indeed bleeding, and she was clearly terrified. I received Georgia from Kandy and gently asked her if she would open her eyes as I held her toward me. She clutched me tightly with determined arms while she buried her head into my chest and exclaimed in her familiar 3 year old vernacular, “No Daddy, My can’t open them. It slap me!” I took her outside onto the front porch. It was dark by now, and I had hoped that I could calm her in the night air. Georgia drew in each breath with a hitch and a sputter in between her sobs. I desperately wanted to see her eye and was finally able to convince her to open both while we sat on the steps and looked for the imaginary kitty that I had just seen at my feet. “There she goes again, Georgia!” I said with feigned surprise. She opened her eyes with a start and turned away from my chest to find the illusory animal, “Where Daddy?!” As I quickly maneuvered my head back and forth to try to track with her movements, I caught a glimpse of her eye. In this moment I had that unwanted experience that occurs when the force and pace of reality overwhelms one’s capacity for holding it; when what so plainly and unapologetically appeared to you simply can’t have been what you saw. “No…no, no” I stammered to myself, shaking my head in refusal to my senses. “Look at me again, Georgia?” I pled. This time she looked directly at me. Her squint could not hide the vertical laceration that ran through the center of her pupil and across the full height of her eye. She was bleeding out of the white of her eye–her sclera–near her upper lid and there was an inflamed ridge along the length of the laceration. And then began the split–the one that occurs when the defiant Protector in you begins to bully that panicked, helpless child in you into lonely, isolated silence: “You stay in there and don’t say a word.” I brought our daughter back inside the house to a wife whose face begged consolation of me. “Is it bad?” Kandy asked. “We need to go to the hospital” I replied.
We all–my father, Kandy and me–exchanged furtive glances that betrayed our deeper worries amid all the attempts at comforting each other with staple parental banter. “She’s 3…she’s probably only frightened herself…she must only be bleeding from her eyelid… They’ll probably just send her home with an eye patch if you take her in” and on and on. Dad offered his most ardent encouragement to us, and, despite his sorrow and palpable concern, had to leave to catch his flight. It was now time to confront the most staggering of my worries–a concern that Kandy was in the moment, denied, due to the purity and innocence of her hope and love for Georgia. It remained inconceivable to her. We were able to distract Georgia with a children’s show on the tablet. As she looked on and held her blanket, I moved toward her, covered her left eye with my hand and asked her what she could see as her right eye remained open. With an innocence that was at once heartbreaking and relieving, Georgia soberly stated “Nuphin’–it’s closed, Daddy’” Now the prayers abounding within me emerged as whispered, hurried imperatives–as though we were running and reaching after a treasure was racing ahead and away, out of our midst. Whispering under my breath, “You must, You must! Please, please, please.” “Okay Georgia, tell Daddy what you see. Can you see anything?” “Nope” she stated in her fatigue–almost dismissively–as she looked on in confusion, trying to compute why she could’t see the cartoon through her open eye. “What colour is it, baby?” I tried again. She was laying on our bed. Noah and Sophia had also gathered to try and encourage her to communicate to us. “It’s black, Daddy” she said resolutely, so clearly free of any worry regarding the real weight of her response. Finally, Kandy and I agreed that we should call a dear friend who is an ophthalmologist. After some discussion, we texted him a photo of Georgia’s eye. He called us back immediately. “As quickly as you can, you should get to emergency. I have called Abbotsford and requested that their ophthalmologist on call come to meet you.” He reiterated again, in case his urgency had been lost on us, “She needs to go as quickly as possible, okay? Right away.” With that, we prepared a bag, Kandy and I embraced each other, and I left her to enter the truck with Georgia and continue our evening odyssey.
From this point, what felt like doses of violence, came in waves to steal and to hurt and shake. After making our way through the intake and dispelling the concerns about this being a case for Children’s Services, the doses kept coming. “We’re going to do our best to save her eye…”
Again, my inner Protector steadied himself as all the other parts quivered, “My daughter may lose her eye. Okay. Okay. Done.”
“She has a ruptured globe. She needs surgery immediately. We have to get her to Children’s–would you like an ambulatory transfer or would you prefer to drive?”
I drove.
On the way, I called Kandy. “What did you learn?” she asked, her agony leaking through her attempts at engaging me calmly. We both wanted so fervently to mitigate the other’s pain and worry.
“Kandy, you’re going to have to steady yourself to hear what I have to tell you.”
“Okay, Pete.”
“She needs surgery at Children’s. She has a ruptured globe and they are concerned that she may lose her eye.”
“What!? Okay… Okay, she may lose her eye… What?! What?!”
And now Kandy’s groaning sobs came surging, “Oh Pete…I’m so sad for her. I’m so sad. My baby. My baby” Over and over, Kandy said the words as she ripped open in an outpouring of soul and heart and body for our child. Her baby’s unblemished body was broken and now she was breaking in turn. In this moment, there is too much to remain connected to, certainly too much to bear. And so you begin to narrow your purview further and further inward, onto a singular point of focus.
“Kandy, I’m so sorry. I’m very sorry. I’m so sorry this happened. I love you. We are going to learn how to do this, and right now our child needs us. You say whatever you need to. You cry as much as you need to. I’m here. I just can’t break with you yet.” Kandy girded herself for her husband, knowing he needed the bulk of his faculties for what was to come. “I have to be strong for her, Kandy.”
“Thank you, Pete. Thank you for being there with our girl. I love you. Call me as you learn more.”
Kandy hung up the phone and called her brother in Alabama to wail. When she was done with Ben, she called her father in law, who had just landed in Edmonton, to share the news with him and wail some more.
I continued down the darkest, loneliest Number 1 highway I had ever driven, as quickly and as I safely could toward Oak Street. Frightened. Praying. Praying and singing. Singing broken, semi-coherent vestiges of whichever hymns were able to weave their way through my jangled brain. “Please help her. Please help us. Please help me.” She had fallen asleep in her seat from exhaustion–a moment of reprieve for her. And, desperately, like a shamed child who doesn’t yet understand his Father’s love, my insides were exposed to me as the layers of artifice were ripped away–I was emaciated: “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Please don’t let my transgressions get in the way of Your care for her!” Where’s my eloquent theology, where are all my professional platitudes and my gathered resolve when tragedy comes to test my mettle? I’ll tell you: they are found clanging and plunking against themselves behind me on the highway, with all their discordant hollow notes, like a heap of cans tethered to the back of a wedding wagon. There I was, exposed and impoverished, just hoping that all that I thought I had experienced with God, all that I was sure I knew about His love, was true. Outwardly, stoic, resolute, determined. Inwardly, a frightened, feeble, scrawny soul.
Helpless.
Once we got to Children’s, Georgia’s familiar graciousness with her examiners was beginning to give way to her exhaustion and her fear. With three medical personnel present with us in the assessment room, Georgia sat on my lap, kneading at her favorite stuffed unicorn with her pudgy fingers. Such kneading is a remnant of her infancy; a soothing instinct that we in our family have grown to love about her–if Georgia was massaging at your neck or your arm while you held her, you knew she felt comforted. Now her tiny hands futilely scoured the environment for some means of bringing her bewilderment to a close. A medical resident who was going about what needed to be done, reached toward Georgia’s blind eye, pulled her bottom lid down to wipe an antibiotic strip into the crease of her eyeball, and and dragged the implement across her throbbing tissues. Georgia, astonished by both the sensation and the abruptness with which it occurred, cracked. She had not seen the resident’s hand approach her, given that it came to her from her right side, and couldn’t catch what was happening until she felt the sting. Lurching back, she cried different tears now, tears that were a potent combination of pain and of terror. That was it. She was overwhelmed and she began breaking wide open. Stuttering and shaking, “We go home, Daddy! It burns me–we go see Momma now. We go see Momma now.” A skilled and gracious staff introduced her i.v. while she receded more into her dissociated state. I ached for her as I held her and watched her hurry further and further inward.
It was now 1am. We had been admitted and were provided Georgia’s new room. I was informed that we would be escorted downstairs at 7am for her surgery. All through the night Georgia’s sleep was sporadic. Every 20-30 minutes she would cry out and roll as she flinched, moving to cover the right side of her face with her arms. I was worried that she would pull her i.v. out. I sat at her bedside, whispering as closely to her ear as I could while stroking her shoulder and her legs and feet “I’m here Georgia; we’re here together. Daddy loves you. Daddy loves you.” In between these moments, when she did sleep, her breaths were mostly hurried. It appeared that her dreams were not bringing any relief. I lay on the cot beside her bed during the refrains and engaged in more scrambled petition. After hours of her scenario not having changed, my prayers became a kind of angry, frenetic, verbal protest. Anger at evil, at brokeness, at the upside-down-ness of the moment; at the upside-down-ness of everything. I was bewildered. “I don’t have any more words, God–you must help her! I don’t know what to do.” As I lay on the cot with my hands on my forehead, my expressions were reduced to a name: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” the plea kept rolling out of me. In that moment, at approximately 4:00am, I was startled to hear Georgia begin to quietly chuckle in her sleep. This was not a frenzied, my-big-brother-is-chasing-me kind of laugh. Instead, it was one of gentle amusement; the kind of chuckle that occurs when you happen upon a dear friend, or you’re gazing upon the youthful frolic of juvenile animals at play. She was comforted. Her body had lost its tension, her breaths were deep and steady and she had relaxed into the contours of her mattress. She slept uninterrupted until her surgeon came to greet her at 7:00am.
The kind surgeon and I attempted to awaken Georgia, who finally came-to with an undulating barrage of “No, no!” no’s. She just wanted to be left alone. He needed to assess her eye and begged her to let him have a look. She was escalating quickly, so I suggested that perhaps he could have a look at some of the close-up photos that I was able to capture of her eye the previous evening. Thankfully, these sufficed him. He explained that he wouldn’t quite know what he was up against until he’d had an opportunity to view her eye on the operating table. He hoped to be able to remove her lens and replace it with an artificial one once he’d repaired her lacerated cornea and sclera. With that, I signed the parental surgical consent form, we exchanged a hopeful handshake, and he left to go and prepare for surgery.
Moments later, Georgia and I headed down in the direction of the operating room with our nurse and one of the surgical personnel. Georgia, naive to what was about to occur, engaged our guides in a robust explanation of her storied relationship with the unicorn that she still clutched. “He’s quertoise–that’s my favorite codor.” While we walked, I shared with Georgia that we were about to meet some new friends who were going to help her eye. As we passed through the last set of doors into the OR–into those gleaming, buzzing, sterile mechanical surrounds–Georgia quit talking and balled herself up into my arms. She was frightened by what she saw. More different. More big. More bright. More people. More scary. All of the gentle strangers in their glistening moon suits and their sing-song voices cordially invited her to lay down on the operating table facing upwards. Georgia told them they were all nuts and that that would not be happening…
“No! MY. NOT!”
After multiple failed attempts at placing her on the table–she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and screamed each time–the wise anesthesiologist agreed to allow her to be put to sleep in my arms. She drifted off and away mid-protest, uttering one last refusal-become-snore. I laid her on the table, kissed her on the forehead, and told her I loved her. I walked out of the operating room into the waiting area, as so many parents have before me, with weight on my chest and my stomach in my shoes. My head was humming. I had now been up for 26 hours and would be for several more. I called Kandy to let her know that Georgia was safely in the care of people who have made it their life’s work to help children like our daughter.
Two hours later, I was greeted by Georgia’s surgeon, who invited me into a private area to review how the procedure had gone. Fully aware of the gravity of such moments for any parent, he tactfully walked me through what had occurred. “It went well” he said, “I wasn’t able to remove her lens as hoped. She has quite a severe laceration and all of the contents of that eye are now determinedly trying to come out the top of that wound. I’ve sewn approximately 25 sutures along her wound. I inserted a tiny air bubble in behind her cornea and we’ll hope that the inner structures respond well to this, taking shape as time moves on. We’re in a bit of a bind here: on the one hand, I don’t want to touch her eye again for some time–I just want to let it settle down in there as her laceration is sewn up so beautifully. On the other hand, we are in a bit of a race–the longer that eye isn’t seeing, the more likely it becomes that it will forget how to see. I want to keep a close watch on her as the days move ahead. We’ll need for you to be at the clinic here in Vancouver quite a lot.” During my time with the surgeon, Kandy had arrived at the hospital and was directed to the second floor, where Georgia had been wheeled in her bed, still asleep. I entered Georgia’s room to find Kandy at her bedside holding her hand. It was a relief to see her. There in her room, we sat and waited for our daughter to awaken. Her life had changed. We had entered a distinctively new chapter as a family.
By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (Jesus of Nazareth: John 13:35)
I hear it frequently–that familiar sardonic spirit, wafting its way through so many passing remarks about our collective humanity, especially from within Christian circles…
“What did you expect? It was his human nature–he just couldn’t control himself.”
“Humans are so messed up. Put us to the test and we’ll eventually show what we’re really made of.”
“She was just being human when she lied”
“My humanity keeps getting in the way of my good intentions.”
My humanity gets in the way? Hmm. Such sentiments are so pervasive that we become inoculated against any awareness of their real impact. Like secondhand smoke, we unwittingly breathe in their poison, which takes hold in the vital faculties of our minds. Sentiments like these result in a costly and collective lean in the direction of despisal; despisal of our nature, of our essence. So many of us have learned in our various cultures and traditions to mistakenly bemoan what we are (human), rather than what we’ve become (broken). We even imply these things in the presence of our precious children, who have yet to be disabused of their inclination to delight in one another–they’re even so blind that they delight in themselves. Have you noticed that? What audacity…
Contrary to this tacit force in the worldview of so many, the Bible presents a vastly different perspective in its first proclamation regarding what we humans are in our bones: “Very good” is the stark and resolute accusation it casts upon us. I’m serious. Go ahead and read the opening stanzas–you’ll see for yourself. You’ll find those very words pulsating there in all of their vibrant wonder–God’s words, spoken with a happy–yes, happy–smile; His eternal reminder, just in case we forget. “Very good.” He makes the claim just after informing us that He created us in His image…
That’s you, my friend. I’ve seen your humanity, and I have to agree with The Maestro regarding His thoughts about you. Let me explain:
Tragedy has recently visited our family. Through no intention of any person–no broken will or malformed character–our youngest daughter, Georgia, in an otherwise benign instance, had sight suddenly stolen from her right eye. From that very moment–literally, as soon as the first words came to the ears of…humans–the outpouring of relentless goodness, of courageous generosity and love, has not ceased to come to Georgia and to our family. In our distress–much of the time, our surprising agony–we have been carried along by the lovely and the loving. In our beloved community of Sandy Hill, so many mothers and fathers, neighbors and teachers, principals and police officers, whose dear friend, Kandy–that daily beacon of joy and hope to so many–is crestfallen, have declared to her “We love you and your family.” through their shared tears, warm embraces, compassionate glances and relentless queries regarding how they might care for our children. And our loving community at Highland Community Church, who have persisted with up-to-the-moment concern and interest–a thousand texts, from all of you, not simply “checking in”, but ardently requesting, “May I help you?” and insisting, “My resources are yours–please tell me what I can do.” And food. Holy smokes. From neighbors and church members, from colleagues and friends along the way. Love-via-casserole and Nando’s, and chili and… delicious Mennonite dishes that we can’t pronounce to save our lives. Who knew? Our fridge, our freezer and our stomachs, are filled with the fruit of tangible care–nourished in body and nourished in soul–bestowed upon us by humans. We have been visited by sojourners at Vancouver Children’s, whose love can be measured in miles-traveled, time-spent and tears shed, and we have been blessed by family, both in Canada and abroad, with prayers and with words of hope and encouragement. And my clients–hundreds of individuals, by whom I have been enlisted and entrusted to serve and to love–have not ceased with their expressions of sorrow and authentic regard for our little one whom they’ve never met. The many staff at Vancouver Children’s–from Diane, the custodian who daily and diligently cleaned Georgia’s room, bringing merry conversation to lighten our load, to the angels that we afford the title ‘nurse’, who so tenderly set their sights on healing our child; from the gentle surgeon, whose heart breaks for the little doll upon whose soul-windows he must operate, to the gentle-man who runs the invaluable valet parking for parents of unwell children. And then there’s the host of you; you, whom we have never met. We have learned through friends that you–so many of you–are praying for our Georgia and for us as we learn how to love each other through this difficult time. On and on, the truth about your nature betrays you all. Despite those claims to the contrary, you’re good.
I know of only one place in the entire Bible where Jesus definitively speaks to the matter of who His disciples–His students, or apprentices–are. The people nearest to Jesus at the time were awfully fastidious about this matter; fastidious in ways that seemed, often, to pain Him. My bet is that many of you have noticed this as a trend that has yet to be curtailed in our own time. Like the polarized masses who followed Jesus around in His day, we scramble to point fingers and chuck stones as quickly as our appendages will allow. Whistling in the dark, we dodge and turn in avoidance of the fractures in our own character. In His typical style, Jesus graciously draws our attention away from the noise of these frenzied, fearful allegations and debates, into the essence of the matter; into the essence of our humanity: “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Italics added)
If you’re like me, you may initially have a hard time reading these words. Perhaps they seem to you, trite, or irritatingly pithy. Upon a second or third, or thirtieth–I recommend the latter–glance, however, perhaps the case changes; perhaps it is revealed that Jesus requests everything of us in this single sentence. “Even as I have loved you…” Again, what those words might actually represent and require, I’ll leave to your discernment. I think it follows from other statements Jesus made, pertaining to matters that He was actually fastidious about–His claims that those who had seen Him had seen God, for example, or His relentless talk about it being a wise idea to learn and to live everything that He taught–that in Him we catch a glimpse of what it might actually mean to be fully human. I’ll leave the discernment of that matter to you also (these words are too heavy to write without qualifiers). And here’s where it gets interesting. If Jesus is the image of the invisible God, and if He is the exact representation of God’s nature (it says both these things in the Book; you’ll find these words in sub-sections called Colossians and Hebrews, respectively–check them out) and if I, as human, am created in God’s image, then here’s what I think I have to conclude: as I seek to love as He (fully human) loves, then I am actually beginning to fulfill, and not dispense of, my humanity. Maybe our children are on to something. Could it be that to love–not, to err–is human? I think if could be. Again, I’ll invite you to discern that matter for yourself–you get the drift.
To all of you, I and my family thank you. We thank you for sacrificing, each in your own way, whether in word or in deed, your time, your resources, your energy, your fear–to love. It’s been mighty human of you. And we love you in return.
Pete (on behalf of little Georgia and the rest of the White family)
PS: An update on Georgia’s second surgery will follow soon. For information on how all of this happened, please visit the Georgia’s Journey heading on the home page