We Should Have Known

So it turns out that my son had an ear infection, which explains everything. He has always reacted severely to ear infections and this time was no different. He had tubes in his ears, but one fell out and what do you know, ear infection! So we have our daughter who has ear infections in both ears, and our son with an ear infection in one ear. Our daughters ears aren't responding to antibiotics so we are on to shots now, hopefully those resolve everything, if not she is on the path to tubes as well. You gotta love it!

Fatigue V - Hold On

I have spoken a lot in my past posts about fatigue, particularly the fatigue that a growing family is exposed to. The kind that you get from not having a choice as to whether or not you can sleep, because you can't, because your children can't, you can't. Somehow for me I have found that it is during these moments that I somehow most want to sleep, no, most need to sleep, when I know that I have no alternative but to stay awake. Last night was one of those nights, my son couldn't sleep, he could find no peace, he could not find comfort, he was emotional, and the whole night was tough.

From about 1:15 a.m. until 5:45 a.m. our little man was awake with his eyes closed, all the members of his body rolling and tussling about, every so often he broke into tears. Try as we might we could do nothing to solve this riddle. Which is where the battle with fatigue for me began, somehow I have convinced myself that any problem that comes up I expect I can solve it, I expect to be able to take care of it. It is those expectations that often set me up for the mightiest of falls. Because try as I might most things don't really work out like I expect them to, and that can be disappointing, if not frustrating. I continue to teach myself the hard way. On my way in this morning I had two quotes running in my mind:

"Be strong. Live honorably and with dignity. When you don't think you can, hold on."
— James Frey (A Million Little Pieces)

and

"I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children."
-The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Somehow I don't think I was holding on, and I'm sure I didn't pass the test getting up. The journey continues, the lessons are abundant and my ability to soak them up is limited, which makes the redundant lessons all the more valuable.

One Respe

Early in the evening on January 12th my wife and I watched with sheer horror over the devastation brought by earthquake to Haiti. Haiti is a country near and dear to our hearts, experiences, and minds. We were fortunate enough to have spent time in Port-au-Prince years ago, and while our time there was relatively brief we are humbled and blessed to have learned much in our travels. If you've ever spent anytime with anyone from Haiti you will have come to experience grace and strength first hand. As we watched the reports we knew that this earthquake was a crisis of epic proportions.

I lack the words to describe what this event means to the world, instead I will borrow these, as they say it all:

Haiti

In Haiti you throw a blank page into the air and words leap onto it.
There are so many stories to tell, so many haunted spirits who cry out for ears willing to listen.

Each generation has written a chapter in a never finished book. One chapter runs into another, tied like knots on a thread that has been dipped in the blood of generations. Each generation is akin to brave predecessors: the slave leader Boukman; Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christope – men who made a nation; Charlemagne Peralte who fought the American occupation; the African slaves who bore the seeds of independence. They are all there on the thread, stained by the courage and deceit of many events.

Haiti was declared the first black republic in the world, but to say it is not enough. It must be scrawled across some wall in the blood it cost.

The world forgets Haiti because Haiti has not participated in the world for some time. For years it was shunned because of the violence and massacre that accompanied its hard-won independence. In more recent times, it has not participated in the world because that might mean changes and there are people, Haitians and others, whose interests have been served perfectly well by the status quo.

So Haiti comes and goes out of mind like some mystery island written about in dark books until some news of violence there splashes across front pages. But for those who know it, Haiti remains ever-etched across the mind and heart. It haunts and bewilders and refuses to let lives go on without it. No one owns Haiti, it owns you and you become the blank page across which Haiti scrawls its beautiful and tragic epitaph.