God at McDonald's

My last blog was about the horror of sleep deprivation. As it turns out, I had absolutely no business writing about horror. I did not know the true meaning of it until our child got sick.

I won’t bore you with the details. I’m sure, dear reader, that you are capable of googling pyloric stenosis should you wish. Suffice to say prior to our admission to hospital the days were filled with vomiting, screaming (mostly Conrad but sometimes me), and washing. So much washing.

When we were told Conrad’s blood results were abnormal and we would need to be admitted the overwhelming emotion was relief. Relief that this is not normal, that we don’t have to live like this forever, that we would get help, that it might be treatable.

At first the doctors were thinking a severe form of reflux. Pyloric stenosis was mentioned, but unlikely as it only affects three out of a thousand babies. Still, better do an abdominal ultrasound just to be sure.

Thank God they did.

And all of a sudden things got serious. Yes, it was treatable. But treatment involved my tiny, fragile, four week old baby going to Auckland for surgery.

The next day we were on the 8am ambulance to Starship.

There were two other patients in the ambulance with us. One was an elderly Roman Catholic. As she got off the ambulance she crossed herself, placed her hand on Conrad and said “God bless you little one”.

This gesture really pissed me off.

Could she not comprehend our surroundings? Clearly, God was not blessing my family. First an emergency C-section and now this. I had been asking people to pray via Facebook and I continued to pray myself, but it was more out of habit than anything else. I had come to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, God no longer cared about my family.

This anger continued to simmer away, and on the morning of my son’s surgery, as I sat at Ronald McDonald house eating breakfast, my ‘prayer’ was more of an angry diatribe at God. Why my family? Why my Son? Why are you making this so hard? What did we do to deserve this?

I am distracted from my internal monologue by a little girl and her mother entering the dining room. The mother is driving a wheelchair that seems more high tech than the laptop I am writing this blog on. It needed to be, as the little girl was severely disabled, unable to maintain her sitting balance or support her own head.

As the mother prepared breakfast in the kitchen the little girl sat in the wheelchair, making incomprehensible sounds and banging her fists on the tray in front of her.

When it came to actually eating breakfast, the mother had to spoon the food in to her daughter’s mouth, then physically manipulate her jaw in order to get her to chew and swallow.

And here I sat, cursing God about the fact my son needed a minor surgery and would then in all likelihood go on to be a perfectly healthy little boy.

How much of a bitch am I?

Stephen Fry was once quoted as saying he doesn’t believe in God because “Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?”

You could adopt this attitude and use the families at Ronald McDonald house to justify your ‘there is no God, life’s shit and then you die’ mentality. But, in my opinion, that would be a mistake. I would rather take C S Lewis’s approach. “Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

Did God have the ability to give me a natural labour and a perfectly formed child? Of course. But he didn’t. And I think I know why.

You see, some mothers absolutely love the new-born phase, but I am not one of them. I love Conrad with all my heart, but I am looking forward to going back to work, to having my boobs back, to sleeping for more than three hours at a time. The truth is, I am finding this hard.

Prior to our trip to Starship I would feel frustrated and sad on an almost daily basis.  Now, when I start to feel these things, I think of that woman and her daughter. And instead of frustration and sadness I feel tremendously thankful. Yes this is hard, but it could be so much harder.

If I ever see that mother again I will tell her how in awe of her I am. That she is doing an incredible job. That she has made me a better mother to our son. That she, completely unknowingly, may have saved me from depression.

I don’t think the fact that there is suffering in this world is a valid argument for atheism. Without it, how would we learn? How would we grow? How would we ever truly appreciate what we have?

Katy Perry once so wisely sang “after a hurricane comes a rainbow”. Pyloric stenosis was our hurricane. My rainbow was finding a way out of my sadness, and learning to appreciate and love my son.

I believe there is always a rainbow, even over places like Ronald McDonald house.

The question is, are you willing to find it?