Everything shut down
The aftermath of Adam’s diagnosis was messy. I felt like Adam’s condition was suffocating me. It was as though life had just come to a complete halt and I lacked direction because all that was in front of me was Adam’s condition. It would never end and he would never get “better”. My idea of “normal” ceased to exist and I had to grapple with an entirely new, uncharted reality that only a handful of families in the world knew anything about. As someone who prides himself in having things figured out I felt like I’d lost control, which, as many men will never admit because we’re awful at emotions: is the most unsettling feeling. In that context, I’ve survived because I have been blessed with a wife who is stronger than anyone realizes. I’ve never told her (or anyone) this, but the reason I was able to keep myself together was because of how she held everything else together.
Make no mistake, my wife suffered severely, but she did so quietly and to herself. She suffered in complete silence. She never let me see it. The only moment I caught a glimpse of it was one night where I’d fallen asleep randomly in the family room. I woke up for a minute and through groggy eyes caught her sitting at the kitchen table, crying softly to herself. I think she did this for weeks though I can’t be sure.
The woman I saw in every other moment, however, was an absolute mountain. From the moment she realized that something was wrong with Adam she took action and was always planning 2 steps ahead. She spent every hour of every day scouring resources through every possible avenue to seek help for Adam, to plan, to fight and advocate for him against the unknown, and she did this with a drive that has never ceased to this day. In her I saw that life had challenged her immeasurably, but she defiantly challenged life right back. I expected her, as I’d heard of this happening to so many others, to fall into depression and anxiety. But from somewhere that eludes me to this day, she has never backed down, never stopped looking forward, and never stopped smiling. She has always found joy particularly in our children, never letting them experience our pain or feel short-handed because of their brother’s condition. I could go on for so long about this, but words will eventually fail me in trying to encompass the enormity of what my wife has accomplished for our family’s sake.
Before Adam’s diagnosis, we found out that we were expecting our fourth child, right around the time I decided to start a new job. New, hopeful beginnings with the optimism that whatever was going on with Adam would eventually go away. But, after finding out about his diagnosis we realized that the best help for Adam would mean that we would have to move. And so while pregnant with our fourth child and with me starting my new job, my wife packed up the entire house, spending many late nights to finish so as not to take time away from the family and the kids.
I travel a lot with my job, and over the course of this time period she never let me skip a beat at work, allowing me to focus without interference, taking on the additional burdens when I was away. It was an invaluable, flawless execution that allowed me to get my bearings back and reclaim so much of myself that I had lost.
And this is where words fail me. Between three kids, navigating Adam’s condition, her pregnancy, my new job, and packing up/selling our house all in a single year, she has held it all together and quietly persevered.
To me, my wife is a monument to motherhood.