Face the Pain

William will be 5 years old this Sunday, September 11.  We rejoice! Here is a poem I wrote some time ago.  Happy Birthday, son.   William’s Storm… Barely above a pound jettisoned into life Peeking through gauze Poked, prodded, stuck and skewered Surrounded by white coats, bright lights, beeps and bottles hanging on poles. Home…

One of the biggest desires of a parent is for your child to get along.  I mean really, who wants to have the kid that “Doesn’t play well with others”?  That has to be a nightmare for any mother or father.  All I knew was that I didn’t want to have “that kid”!  You know…

We all have reasonable expectations, especially when we have absolutely no reason to think otherwise. It’d be like entering 2 + 2 into a calculator and anything BUT 4 coming up on the screen. On September 10, 2006 despite Lisa’s cramping, discomfort, and a lengthy ultrasound, we were assured by nurses that, “Everything is OK.”…

When I was a little boy one of my favorite things to do was play my Mattel Handheld Football Game.  It was a little bigger than an iPhone.  It was about 6″ long and 3.5″ wide.  William was barely twice that size when he was born.  It was all white and had 6 small buttons…

When you’re sitting in a small, white room where the couch is too small and there aren’t enough chairs, faith takes on a whole new meaning. Despite the strife looming in that room, I could feel faith. Faith has a feeling.  I could touch it.  Faith had His arms wrapped around me.  The doctor told…

Just when I thought there was nothing else the doctor could say to me that would not offend or upset me, he asked, “What do you want to do?”  To me, that question was cruel on many levels.  Maybe it was not the question. Maybe it was how he prefaced it…. “Sure, your son made…

Despite William’s uphill battle, life went on.  My day started at 430am and still does.  I opened our gym before 6am, went to visit with William around 7am for about an hour, returned to the gym and closed at 8pm, went back to visit with William until 11pm, went home hoping to sleep without hearing…

When the doctor told us that he did not expect William to survive through the week, I hurt to my soul. It was debilitating. Did it feel like the doctor punched me in my stomach? Getting kicked in the stomach by a horse is more like it. I thought, “How can he say something like…

The security guard led the way upstairs.  Well, actually I led the way. I was racing down the hallway pushing Lisa in the wheelchair while he was 4 or 5 steps behind me giving me directions!  We got to an empty room that was quickly filled with doctors and nurses.  Unreal!  It was as if…

September 11, 2006 was an awesome and traumatic day for me.  Awesome because my son, William, was born just after midnight.  Traumatic because his birth was 14 weeks early AND he weighed 1lb-14oz.  Ya, they call that a 26 weeker.  That was my introduction to the word micro-preemie. Just the evening before my wife, Lisa,…

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