War

There was the night, ten years ago, when the ringing phone woke us at 2 a.m. The NICU nurse said that our daughter had "coded" and doctors were doing everything they could to resuscitate her. She said to come quickly, but she wouldn't say what we would find.

For the next hour, nearly all of it spent in silence, our voices were paralyzed as our minds played out every possible scenario and explored every possible fear that we could not verbalize. We rushed into her room toward her incubator. Hoping to find her still there. Fearing she would not be.

Life? or Death?

Relief doesn't describe a parent's emotion upon discovering her daughter alive. It's a start, but ... Saved? yes Helpless? yes Fragile? yes Mobilized? yes Small? yes Numb? yes. And more. Not a linear progression of emotions, either; just a cloud of them obstructing your actions. You need to do something, yet you can't do anything.

We weren't allowed to hold her yet. As a preemie infant, she didn't know who we were, or that we were there. We could offer her no comfort. It was she who offered us comfort. She offered us the sight of her chest moving up and down with every assisted breath she took. She offered us the occasional twitch of an eyelid or finger. She communicated with us through the beeps of the equipment attached to her, the graphs on the monitor to show us her heart rate as proof that it still beat.

She didn't know, in her two months spent in the NICU since her birth, that she had become integral to our family. She didn't know the emotional devastation her premature departure would create. She didn't know she had the capacity to leave a twin twinless, creating a void that could never be recovered.

She didn't need to know any of those things. We carried those thoughts for her. All she needed to do to save us was to live through the night.

And she saved us.

Ten years later, we can see the otherwise invisible scars of her prematurity and her cardiac arrest. She has, and will continue to have, struggles that others do not. But in many ways, we are lucky. Our daughter's fight for life was a short war. Twenty-four hours later, we were certain of the outcome. No, we didn't realize at that time the years of therapy and the challenges that would follow. But we knew she was ours to keep. And that's all that mattered.

Life is precious. When our time to fight for it - and we all will have a time to fight for it - comes sooner than we expect, or comes to our children, causing us agony and heartache while we watch, we will struggle. I feel for the parents today who watch their children fight a war within their own bodies. I feel for those fighting or watching a war that may not be won in hours, but in weeks, months, or years.

To Them: As you watch your child fight his war, know that you are important to me and that you are not alone. I will listen to you and cry with you. And I will help you with practical and logistical measures so you can focus on your child. This is a war that can be won with strength and faith.

You are not alone.