I don’t know exactly what I expected parenting to be like. As with most things we want to do, our desires are often based on vague hopes and pleasant generalizations. Take golf, for example. Before I actually played, I envisioned idyllic strolls through a lush, neatly trimmed paradise. The effort, the social pressure, the frustration never occurred to me, just as much of what parenting requires escaped my prior notice, too. My two-dimensional illusion foresaw only a quick drive to the hospital, a birth, happy feelings and a successful future. Oh sure, struggles would come, but rarely; frustration, seldom; pain, certainly not; and anger, impossible! But then the reality of the whole affair transformed me.
When my wife, Tierre, told me that she was pregnant, my heart pounded ambivalently. I stood in the hallway blinking at her, not sure what the appropriate reaction should be. I smiled awkwardly. My idealistic hopefulness mixed with a vague trembling, for at age 25, I was still training to be a youth pastor and only working part-time. But these concerns merely proved to be a puff of wind compared to the violent storm that ensued.
Severe conditions
Tierre called me at work one day with frightening news. Her gynecologist, concerned about her unusually high red blood cell count and slight heart murmur, had recommended that she be tested by a cardiologist.
Her voice trembled as she explained the diagnosis: Eisen-menger’s Syndrome, a rare heart defect that limits blood oxygen levels to the body. Others confirmed this diagnosis, and we learned that it was curable only by a heart or lung transplant, or both. The severity of her condition required both, but the pregnancy made such surgery impossible.
Two doctors quickly advanced abortion as an option, but further research revealed that for Tierre it would be no less risky than carrying the child to term. After seeking guidance from God, our elders, and our consciences, we chose to continue the pregnancy. Tierre spent the next five-and-a-half months in the hospital. She was 20 years old.
Strong remembrances
I remember the day our daughter was born with the vivid clarity of an intense dream, the events of which collectively evoke such strong emotions that even now I often feel that day before I’m aware I’m thinking of it. I feel, then I see.
An oppressive despair squeezes my heart as 15 specialists materialize in a crowded, brilliantly lit operating room. Equipment surrounds the adjustable bed; tubes and wires reach into Tierre like surgical fingers. I wedge in next to my wife, hold her hand and witness the birth of our full-term, skinny, four-pound girl. The sea of masks and blurs of activity swirl dreamlike, but the precise moment I witness our daughter’s birth is not a dream.
After a taut silence, the baby cries and the room erupts in activity. She is whisked out and examined while the remaining specialists work to stabilize Tierre. The months spent observing black and white scans, listening to electronic heartbeats and feeling and seeing little kicks all dissipate into a vapor when the baby finally lies in Tierre’s arms. I look at Tierre and marvel at God’s grace.
Two days after delivery, we named our daughter Faye Elizabeth. All three of us were allowed to stay in the same intensive-care room. Faye rested in an incubator under a bilirubin lamp to combat her jaundice, I slept in a corner on a reclining board and Tierre remained plugged into everything in the hospital. She was too weak to do much more than hold Faye, and so here I learned how to feed and care for our daughter, every instinct demanding that I provide for her comfort and physical needs.
God is larger than any one circumstance, the breadth of His will weaving all events to His glory and praise
Here, too, I began to discover the responsibilities and affections of a father. In many cultures the mother is expected only to nurture the child, while the father is expected to achieve the family’s social and economic goals. Obviously, a family must be provided for and children need nurturing, but a partnership demands the melding, the overlapping of abilities, not their total division. A father’s affection must also support the family’s emotional well-being, while a mother’s provision may at times involve sacrificing all that she has.
Then at 3 am on day four, activity awakened me. Nurses rolled Faye out of the room. I quickly sat up, threw off my blanket and grasped Tierre’s hand. In a moment I, too, was led out. But as I let go, an internal mechanism clamped a belt of steel around my ribs, at once constricting my breath and preventing my heart from rupturing. A doctor ran past me with an intense expression, and the last thing I saw was him kneeling over Tierre, desperately pounding her chest. In that brief, relentless moment, nothing more could be done.
The news of Tierre’s death came from the chief cardiologist. He simply laid a hand on my shoulder and spoke words I cannot remember, yet will never forget. My emotions overcame me. Soon after, I knelt beside Tierre and wept tears of bitter regret. The irony that her sacrifice had brought life was no solace. And at such times, God often seems merciless to sinful eyes. He seems harsh, uncaring, impotent, and yet as a loving father He does what is right and gives us the grace to trust Him.
God is larger than any one circumstance, the breadth of His will weaving all events to His glory and praise. But this terrifying beauty will equally tear us with rage and fill us with awe.
A new life
At first, I could no more fathom how I would navigate the mysterious waters of single parenting than how a star stays suspended in the sky. But I was not alone. When my heart became too broken to bear, God comforted me through my friends; when I did not know what to do next, the Lord encouraged me by opening the hearts of several families in our church to help care for Faye. And as I grieved over the death of dreams, He taught me to trust that He would use dismantled hopes to reassemble in my heart far better realities.
Faye is four now—healthy, cheerful and active. But sometimes I wonder how all this will influence her. Tierre’s role in Faye’s life may seem to have ended, but I believe her obedience to God and her willing sacrifice will play as significant a role in developing Faye’s character as that of any mother. And what more could a mother give? In honor of Tierre, that which best characterizes her convictions is engraved on her tombstone: “Life held onto selfishly is no life at all.”
A paradox I never understood until recently has radically transformed my concept of parenting: A tear and a laugh can clash within a heart, yet love can permeate that life. No circumstance will steal away our capacity to love—not single parenting, tragic loss nor paralyzing pain; only our selfishness can. Indeed, the kind of suffering that comes when we give up what we want most for what another needs may even cause us to love more completely. I once believed love eliminated any possibility of struggle, but as even Montaigne realized so long ago, “The things are dearest to us which cost us the most.”
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