I have no idea where the joy star is. When I first got it I stuck it next to the previous year’s star word, discover. Discover still hangs above the mirror, but joy has fallen off long ago. I found another place to place it and now it is nowhere to be found. I have lost my joy.
When I first got that word my father was dying in the hospital and I worried about how my mother would take his death. I had no idea of all the other complications that would abound. That every asset my father left behind was underutilized or compromised in some form or fashion. It has created lots of frustration and stress as the year has gone on, and now I wonder if this going on four week cough is partly due to that stress.
The thing is when I got that word I didn’t think it bad or the wrong word. It was a reminder that I needed. There is joy in this life. Even when things are darkest there is joy. We can face all our troubles with a smile on our face. It is our choice, and I have overcome worse.
I say that and I mean it. Losing a parent is terrible. It is one of the worst things people experience, but it is something that everyone that doesn’t die young will experience. It is part of the human condition. What not everyone will experience is a NICU stay, and having experienced both it is my belief that the NICU stay is far worse.
It is daily stress that the most precious thing on earth to you could be ripped away without warning. The boys are healthy and happy six year-olds but that doesn’t change the journey we went through to get here. That NICU ordeal is not one I would wish on anyone.
The other day my wife got a phone call from The American Red Cross to donate blood, and it caused a conversation with the boys about how their bodies couldn’t produce red blood cells when they were born and they needed a couple full body blood transfusions. There lungs weren’t fully developed, their brains needed to grow, they would occasionally forget to breath and the monitors in their room would go crazy.
It was a tough bad time. Joy is our reminder to focus on the good. We have our boys. They are happy and healthy six year-olds. The stress of that time has not yet washed off, and the stress of this year is still building. There is good that comes from everything. We must seek our joy to find it and then we wear our smile like armor to face the days of trouble that lie ahead.
David Huzzard Writes 