There’s a bit too much in my heart to write about all in one post, but I wanted to start to process it all, and this is the only way I know how.

My son was sick – just a run-of-the-mill flu that gave him some shakes, fever and fatigue.  After a few days he got better.  Then he got worse.  High fever and vomitting sent us straight to the hospital.  But his symptoms were still hiding – an ultrasound showed it wasn’t appendix, further tests showed it wasn’t meningitis.  Then his eye started to swell, and we suddenly knew.  He had developed sinusitis and it had spread to his eye.  But how bad was the situation?  A CT scan showed the spreading was only into the front of his eye – the skin around his eye, and not to the back which would have been oh so much worse because that’s where the Central Nervous System and the Brain hang out.

IV started because of severe dehydration, pain meds started for his increasing pain, antibiotics started to fight the infection, prayer started to stop any further spreading of the attack on his body.  Arrangements were made to air-lift him to a more equipped children’s hospital hundreds of kilometres away.  Daddy went with him, mommy caught the next plane which left 6am the following morning.  Friends rallied, younger brother put into care of wonderful friends, prayer cover increased around the globe.

I sit on the plane which would take me to join my husband and son, and I cry and I pray and I plead with God to make it all OK.  And then I hear laughter.  A little girl’s laughter.  Across the aisle from me.  There was some turbulence, and while all the adults were scared and clutching their armrests, she was laughing with utter delight.  And I thought if only I could be so trusting, so sure, so confident that even though we never know the outcome of turbulence, the main thing is to enjoy the ride.

I’ll never forget the sound of her laughter, God’s gift to me during one of the darkest days of my life.  And I’ll learn from that laughter for the rest of my days.

Today I can breathe again, my son sleeps soundly in his room, the eye swelling is decreasing, the pain is decreasing, the nausea is gone, his spirits are high, and once again I hear his laughter during my days.  And his laughter makes me laugh, and I continue to ride out the turbulence.