Blood, Tears, & Joy

By Bill Hallsted

"Andrew! Get down and get over here!"
Up in a tree is not a place for a twelve-year-old with frequent seizures. He jumped down and darted across the street. He never saw the car coming. I hadn't even looked…
This is a captivating, entertaining book, replete with candid insights into keeping a marriage strong, raising a family, and dealing with the instinctive guilt and resentments that beset parents of a special needs child.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CrossLink Publishing
• Release date: Jun 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781393303435

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: FAINT PREMONITIONS

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Is there any chance that medicine will hurt the baby?

No faint, foreboding whisper even suggested the portent of that question. Nothing hinted at its latent charge of prophetic import.

Dr. Dunlap stepped back and looked at Arlene carefully. Blackening eyes peered painfully from her battered face. Newly placed facial sutures punctuated her agitation like too many quotation marks. He answered slowly, thoughtfully.

There is always some risk, with any medicine. That risk is always greater when you’re pregnant. But the fact is, without the medication, I don’t think there’s any chance you’ll carry this baby.

You mean we might lose this one too?

An already twisted tissue wrung tighter in her hands. Tears of pain and fear and jangled nerves coursed across swollen cheeks. Her eyes probed the doctor’s face for any reassurance.

I’m afraid that’s a very strong possibility, the doctor answered quietly. That’s why you need to stay reasonably calm. This medicine will help you do that. It’s not strong. You won’t feel drugged or groggy. It’s just something you really need, until you get past the trauma of this accident. You’ve really been through a severe trauma, you know.

It was odd, that an automobile accident would reveal Arlene’s pregnancy. We did suspect, actually, and we hoped, but we weren’t sure. Now it was imperative to know. The doctor’s Emergency Room examination confirmed it. It was only by God’s grace our two children were with their grandparents, three hundred thirty miles away, in Chadron, Nebraska, instead of in the ill-fated car with us.

In fact, we are convinced it was only the Spirit of God who kept us alive. We didn’t even realize it was His urging to buckle our seat belts. In 1967 it was the first car we had owned that even had seat belts. We didn’t normally use them. Only an unexplainable series of events provided us the protection they afforded.

The trouble with the car was minor, at worst. Something just didn’t feel quite right in the way it handled. I decided it might have a low tire. In retrospect, I truly believe it was that Holy Spirit who prompted me to stop the car to check the tires. As I got back in, my eyes inexplicably fell on our never-used seat belts. I began to tease Arlene. And why isn’t your seat belt fastened, young lady?

She shot back, Why should it be? I trust your driving.

Because they were put there to use, that’s why.

Then why aren’t you wearing yours?

Because I hate the feeling of being tied up.

But they were put there to use, remember?

Are you using my own words against me?

Her eyes danced, as they always did when she argued me into a corner. She said, I’ll fasten mine if you fasten yours.

Still more as a joke than anything, we both buckled up. Six miles later it happened. A car leaped through a stop sign, across the road directly in front of us. There was no chance to stop, slow or swerve. Our car broadsided the other at sixty miles per hour. We were both injured, but not killed. It was only that gentle prompting to fasten our seat belts that saved our lives. In 1967, there were no shoulder straps as part of the seat belts. There were no air bags. Consequently, although Arlene is only five feet tall, her head broke the windshield. The impact stretched her out a long way! The steering wheel penetrated my face and created a lifelong dimple, among other injuries, but we survived.

Our injuries were cleansed and treated. Arlene’s pregnancy was diagnosed. We answered a torrent of questions. They informed us we would both be admitted to the hospital.

Dr. Dunlap, is there any way we could be put in the same room?

Oh, we never put a man and a woman in the same room, the nurse replied instantly.

Uh, Sister, could I speak with you a moment?

Certainly, Doctor. Excuse us for a moment.

A hushed conversation just outside the door was indecipherable to us. The results were not. Our treatment was continued. The orderlies came to wheel us to our rooms. The nurse said, Oh, we’ve moved a couple patients around, so you two will be able to share the same room.

A coed hospital room! Small acts of kindness can be so wonderful sometimes. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and relief. We needed each other very badly just then. Within the next couple hours we were made as comfortable as possible—together—in our room. When we were alone I got out of bed and pushed the beds close enough together that we could reach out and hold hands.

I really can’t express the feeling that filled us. We held hands. We talked. We prayed. A strange euphoria filled us that should have been completely out of place. Through the blood and the tears, a feeling of God’s presence flowed through us. It evoked an almost inappropriate sense of joy. It was the inexplicable joy of God’s presence that often comes in times of crisis. We didn’t recognize it yet. We would later. We were to feel it many times in the coming years.

Arlene was pregnant! We wanted another child so badly! Working full-time while attending Bible College made it impractical, but we wanted another child anyway. Our oldest, Don, was six. Nancy was five.

The previous year we had lost a baby, a while before term. We learned the terrible pain of losing a child—even one we hadn’t gotten to know yet. It was our child. We wanted it. We loved it. We looked forward to its birth with delight. Then, when we suddenly lost it, the grief was just the same as if it were one of our other children.

There was a difference, though. The difference was in the attitude of most of our acquaintances, and even our friends. Only minimal sympathy was offered, and much well-intentioned, but painful, counsel.

Well, miscarriages happen all the time. It probably means something was wrong with it.

Even our doctor said, Don’t worry about it. You’re young. You can just have another.

You ought to try again right away, so you won’t waste a lot of time grieving.

Well, after all, it isn’t like really losing a child.

In response our hearts cried out, Yes it is! It is not ‘like losing a child!’ That’s exactly what it is. We have lost our child. I don’t know how we can care about and love a child we have never seen, but we do. We hurt. Doesn’t anybody care?

God cares. God understands. He imparted the strength and the comfort through our tears of loss, and we endured. God also does more than enable us to endure. He uses every circumstance for our benefit, and the benefit of others, through us. We were made much more sensitive to the pain and grief of those who lose unborn children than we ever could have been, without ourselves experiencing it.

Now, even through the physical pain of recovery, we rejoiced. We were moving toward a joy that would go a long way toward erasing the pain. The baby was okay. Dr. Dunlap assured us there was no chance the force of the seat belt could have harmed it. We both wore a six-inch-wide band of deeply bruised flesh where the seat belts held us, but it was below the abdomen.

We also wore dramatic physical evidence of the accident. Our faces were a mess! After we were released from the hospital, we milked our appearance for all the twisted delight it would yield. Whenever we noticed people staring, we would say things like, Keep that up and I’ll clobber you again.

Try it! I’ll do a better job this time.

Or I’d say, Next time let me do the talking, okay?

Or, Why didn’t you tell me your dad was hot-tempered?

Or, Next time, let’s wear boxing gloves.

We were healing. We were together. Things were under control. Life was good.

The medication Arlene was taking was a different matter, however. Neither we nor the doctor had any intimation of the damage that particular medication could do to an unborn child. We had no premonition of a future that was, even then, being shaped in ways that would radically alter our lives.

About a month and a half after the accident, my parents brought Don and Nancy home. We were pretty well recovered, and joy sat comfortably among us. Arlene’s pregnancy went beautifully and was trouble free. After about a month, the medication ceased to be necessary, and she discontinued it. She experienced no morning sickness, no undue pressure or pain, and life was good.

Winter wore on past Christmas and into the new year. Arlene grew bigger and bigger, more and more uncomfortable. When a woman who weighs less than a hundred pounds reaches the final stages of pregnancy, she looks like she needs a wheelbarrow to carry the forward section. For three months people had been asking if the baby wasn’t about due.

Finally, the time arrived. Arlene’s water broke spontaneously at five-thirty A.M. No problem. This was our third child. I was an old hand at this child-birth business. I knew how long these things take. Knowing there was a lot of time, I called my parents, informing them the time had arrived, and visited a while as Arlene fidgeted and tried to hurry me. I called a friend who had offered to babysit Don and Nancy when the time came. We took our time driving to the hospital. In spite of Arlene’s insistent urgency, I knew there was no hurry. We arrived casually at the hospital at six A.M. Andrew James was born at six-fifteen.

Our perfect family had just become even better. Dr. Dunlap sailed into the waiting room, bubbling with enthusiasm. You’ve got a beautiful baby boy! he exulted. They just don’t come any finer! The delivery was quick and easy, and the baby is perfect. If I could write the whole script, it just couldn’t be any better. Congratulations, Dad!

It was a long time before we would know better. Even then, though, omens hinted at what we did not know. With the two prior children (and with the two children who were to come later) Arlene was euphoric after delivery, and for days following. She had to be restrained from walking back from the delivery room. Not so with Andrew.

At the moment of his birth she began to cry. She didn’t know why. She just couldn’t stop. All day long the tears flowed, unexplained and unbidden. The doctor shrugged it off as postnatal blues. We just struggled with it and waited for it to pass. We certainly didn’t understand it.

Is there some primal knowledge hidden deep in a mother’s body that knows what her mind has not yet discovered? Did that primal awareness know his birth was a time to weep? Did she know, deep within her mother’s soul, that a sorrow had been born that would wring our hearts dry of tears for many years to come? All we can do is wonder, I guess.

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CHAPTER 2: PREMONITIONS BECOME PROBLEMS

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We perched proudly on the pinnacle of parental smug for two years. We really had reason to be smug, we thought. My schooling was going well. Don and Nancy were doing well in school. Andrew was a good-natured, beautiful, intelligent child. I achieved the position of Head Chef with the finest restaurant in town. We had a weekend ministry with a great little congregation, thirty five miles away.

We had also begun the dream of building a house with our own hands, in our spare time. We bought a piece of property, had the basement dug, and began with Arlene mixing mud by hand in a mortar box, while I laid concrete blocks. We were determined to do all the work, including heating, plumbing and wiring, ourselves. That project did short the time available to spend as a family, however. Nearly all of our family time was spent working on the house.

In January, Andrew celebrated his second birthday. Three months later, on a balmy April night, life abruptly and permanently changed. I returned home from work, shortly after midnight, to find Arlene in tears.

What’s the matter?

Oh, I’m just upset. Andy did something scary today.

What?

He had a seizure.

A what?

A seizure.

What’s that?

He went into convulsions.

What?! Tell me about it!

He was sitting on the bed, coloring in a coloring book, and he just fell over and went into convulsions.

You mean just like that?

She nodded, wiping her eyes. There used to be a girl in my school that did that sometimes. Her name was Conception. That’s how I knew what he was doing. It looked just like what she used to do.

How long did he keep doing it? What did it act like?

She wiped her leaking eyes again. He only did it for a minute or two. He straightened out real stiff. His eyes rolled back so only the whites showed. He kept jerking and making funny noises and turned kind of blue. Then he let out a big breath and relaxed. He breathed real heavy for a little bit, then went to sleep.

Did you call Dr. Dunlap?

Yes, I talked to him. He asked me if he had any fever, or any signs of a cold, and I said, ‘No.’ He asked me if he had any signs of ear infection, and... oh, I don’t know what all else, but he didn’t have any of it. Anyway, he said kids do that sometimes, for a lot of different reasons, and usually nobody ever knows why, and he probably won’t do it again.

So, is he okay now?

He seems fine. I held him and he slept for about half an hour, then he woke up and went back to coloring like nothing happened.

Then why are you so upset?

She cried for a while before she answered. I should have held her, comforted her, reassured her, but I didn’t. I just got a little irritated with her tears, and waited.

She finally said, "I don’t know. It’s just that I saw Conception do that all the time in school. Everybody made fun of her, and called her an epileptic and a retard and everything. I don’t want one of my kids to be like that.