Why You Should Marry A Good Man

January 24th 2010

I always knew John was a special find, in fact what first attracted me to him was his goodness and willingness to swim against the tide.  However I cannot tell this story without emphasising the incredible strength of character and wisdom John has displayed during these last  weeks.  The journey home from Holles St Hospital that dark, rainy November evening is not one I'd like to repeat.  I was heartbroken, the scenario presented to us was looking pretty grim- this precious little child, already so loved by us was in big trouble.  More than likely she'd die either before or  shortly after birth and it looked like her beloved siblings would never have a chance to hold her alive.  How were we going to tell them?   That night my sleep was like Alice In Wonderland...this might happen, or this, or this..it was a maze where every corner you turned was something equally terrifying.  I was gripped with fear.

This went on, in front of the children I presented an optimistic outlook but I wasn't convincing myself.  Next night when the children had gone to bed John sat me down..in the middle of my tears he asked me why I was crying.  Had he gone mad? Had he not heard the doctors? What was this stupid question!!!   No he hadn't gone mad..he asked me was I afraid I wouldn't love the baby? No I wasn't.  Was I afraid of hard work?  No .  Was I sorry the baby would probably not achieve what the world sees as 'greatness' ?  No.  Was I afraid of disability?  No.   Then what was it?  John made me specify the cause of my tears...the probability of a fatal anomaly was still only 30% so the baby's chance of life was more probable than not.  If we'd been afraid of hard work we wouldn't have had the number of children we already had.  As for what the baby's potential would be, didn't we want all our children to reach their potential?  So what if that potential was very low, was that of less value or dignity than the person with great genius? So what if all this little person could do was lie on a bed and receive love?  At what point in our marriage had we specified our children should or would all be 'normal'.

John made me see what I was afraid of was the same of being afraid of the dark..generally there really isn't anything to be afraid of but that doesn't stop the fear..we allow the mind to take a trip into a world which doesn't really exist.  No matter what the future was going to hold for us it wouldn't fundamentally change us.  We'd  still have to get up in the morning, we'd still have to face making the boring lunchboxes, we'd still have to do our best.  Nothing else is expected.

My tears haven't completely dried up and in fact are never too far from the surface, but that was the moment of acceptance for me.  Thank You God for John.