The Prodigal's Sister

If one thing sears my soul in this season of prodigality it is the destruction…the toll…it takes on the family.  My heart hurts heavy at the ruin that lies at the feet of this disease.  How it can take living…loving…lively people and lay them out lame, limping, and lost.  Too many families have lived this tragedy.

The night before I left on my trip, too tired for words, we had our Thursday night family dinner.  Day after the surgery.  Minus the Prodigal.   I probably should have canceled.  Knowing that my brittle bones and burned out brain were bleeding empty.  But I wanted the continuity of the one constant.  The connection.  Selfishly I needed to see my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter.  To touch base with some fragment of normalcy.  To hug them tight.  To share in silence the events of the past week.

When my daughter arrived with our granddaughter I could feel tension.  Prodigal Papa was home and we sat on the floor in our family room in the midst of toddler toys.  My sweet daughter…strong…sanguine…self-assured, spewed sadness.  Scarred silly from all that she has endured.  Her heart that is so giving…heaved heavy hurts that had built to this place of overflow.  Her hidden concerns over our marriage, our lives, flowed forth like a flood.  She let the words wade in and out…as we sat accepting the tide of emotion.  The pent up frustration she felt.  The impact her brother’s disease has had on her life.  As a sister.  As a daughter.  As a married woman. As a mother.  Her largeness of loss.  The optimistic, glass half-full attitude, all but gone. 

But the line that scabs of sadness was when she said, “I want my Mom back.” I type these words with trembling hands, the emotion as fresh as if they were just uttered.  I sat motionless.  Unable to speak.  Without an ability to “fix” what is unfixable.  This faith-filled young woman, fallen.  Flat.

Speechless, we hugged. What could I say.  What could I do.  Helplessness filled my eyes.  So weary was I that I could offer little to console her.  She, too, an innocent victim of this damaging disease.

This memory I took on my trip.  Packed it in my suitcase of sadness.  Of regret.  Another failing grade to add to my cache.  My precious daughter whom I could not protect.  Who I’ve hurt by being drained by my Prodigal’s ongoing drama.   To the point where she’s crying out to be heard.

As I return home to my family…my reality…I have no solutions to be offered.  Just to keep on keeping on.  To take each day as it comes…one day at a time.  To do my best and let God handle the rest.  To continue to lay my Isaac down.  To love my daughter well.  Cherishing each moment we share.

The lesson being…I can’t fix my son – He has to want to get well.  I can’t make the pain go away for my daughter – this is her story, too.  I can only surrender to my God and let Him carry my burdens…my failing grades…and bring victory in His timing.