Accepting your wish is basically accepting the fatality of your disease.

I dread this week.... It has never been more real than this, because this is the week that I have to meet with all of my professors and tell them your time left with us is uncertain. That any day your illness could take you from us. Tell me brother, how am I ever going to muster up the strength to do that? To look each one of them in the eye without breaking down? I don't think I can... It is a moment demanding that I give into the reality of your prognosis. And having family and doctors encouraging me to actually tell people, that makes it more of a reality than ever.

I can't hide behind the maybe's or the other treatment options. I can't think about whether we will have another Christmas with you.... Or your birthday...  Asking God for another year with you seems like an impossible request at best. The mere thought that doctors don't know how to save you... Tell me dear brother, how am I supposed to walk through life so peacefully, knowing your miracle may not come? At least, not the one on Earth.

The day mom and dad brought you into my life, was the moment it would change forever. You have impacted every fiber of my being it seems. I have spent many nights crying during your hospital stays but those times of sadness and uncertainty were also opportunities of growth for my spirit. It has strengthened my desire to give love instead of receive it. To try and show my God's great love in everything I do...

Some days are better than others, the busier I stay the more helpful it is. But these moments of being alone and in quiet are what harbor the weakness. To hear the quiet and stiffness of mom and dad's voice on the phone when I ask "how long?" is one of the most unsettling feelings in the pit of my stomach that I think I have ever experienced.You have shown me what unconditional love truly is, what it means to live solely by faith, and to be happy just because we are here another day. I love you my dear brother, and I am asking you to hold on as long as you can. I selfishly would ask for another year with you but I know that it is not mine for deciding. I have to be thankful He gave us today with you.

God Has a Reason

It was a week from my brother's 7th birthday and my parents called our priest to the hospital. My brother had not been responding to treatment and his pressure plummeted into the 60s.... my heart sank to the floor with that phone call. The doctors were not sure he would survive the night-- he had been doing so well, originally admitted for a life threatening bloodstream infection. Which he was able to overcome mind you. And then the day that he was moved out of the ICU, he completely deteriorated.

I knew that I could not get a flight out that would get me to my brother on time and in that moment, I just remember falling to the floor on my knees....

Sometimes it gets too hard to pray and you just want to tell God that you're frightened and can't focus. But in that moment is when you experience it all being taken off your shoulders; where it is just you and Him in the room; where He catches your every tear and holds you while you cry. You know nothing else in that moment except that God loves you beyond what your human mind can comprehend. It is in these times that I have learned that life is not about making every moment happy. It is about making God a part of every moment- I can think of nothing greater than experiencing His love.

What I wouldn't learn until later was that the very thing that got him in this mess is what would play a part in saving him. He was supposed to have his trach removed earlier last year but due to circumstances beyond our control it had not happened yet. I had spent so much time being frustrated that he still did not have his trach out, that I wasted time and energy for no purpose at all. Had he not had that trach and had they not been able to attach him to a ventilator as quick as they did, doctors would have had to stick a tube down his throat (intubate) and my brother would have been put on life support. Needless to say, today would have been a completely different story as they were not sure they would ever get him off life support, based on his past complications.

I feel like this is something I need to repeat to myself every day; God really does have a plan; even if we don't see it right away its details are weaved into our daily lives; one delicate moment at a time.