Draft

Draft never published

- Draft

Written Dec 23, 2011 4:58pm by Amber Gannon Medina

There is no easy way to describe it. There is no measure, no song lyric and no blog that captures the way I feel or how I have changed since Mira's birth. It wasn't instant and the changes weren't what I would have personally chosen. But they have been what I needed in order to go through this ordeal, and I am sure there will be more changes as I continue to adapt to this really bizarro new life.....

Its hard to explain this to other people. You realize that hardship can bring people together but it can also divide them. When I hear other peoples' stories of the heartbreaking and difficult places they have been, I understand the horrible feelings they must have been going through-sadness, hopelessness, fear, helplessness. I believe those are universally understood human emotions. However, the friend who lost his wife? I cannot begin to understand what that feels like! My grandparents losing their eldest son, my father his older brother? I am an only child! When people tell me their stories, my initial response is that I want them to know I share their pain. I want them to know they are not alone. But I don't. I can't. In a way they ARE alone.That pain and their experience is not part of my journey, and its not something I can fathom, even with what I've been through. I am not perfect, I still say things that I wince over after our conversation. But I try to bite my tongue, try to leave my advice or my own experience out of it. I just listen. 

There is no right way to do any of this. There is no right way to feel about your only daughter laying in the hospital and suffering through her recovery. There is no right way to respond to other peoples' pain-we are all so different in how we deal with rough times. However, I would say that maybe there is one safe way to do it.