He Should Have Been There

My sister and her family came to town this week for Bailey to see her surgeon in Dallas. Here is the report in the words of her father Tod:

We just finished with Dr. Starr. We have good news and bad news. The bad news is short term, the good news is very good. Bailey is healing extremely well. She had multiple fractures in her pelvis and they are all healing very well. The x-rays show that everything is in place and looks great. The catch is that the healing bone is still soft and he wants her to be in a wheelchair for another 5 weeks. It wasn’t a surprise to him, just to us. Our expectations of being able to walk out of his office were unrealistic. She isn’t fragile, but the risk of messing up where she is now isn’t worth it. If she knocks things out of line he can’t fix it and it will have terrible long term implications. He told her to do a lot of pool therapy. It will help when she begins to walk.

That leads to the good news. When she starts walking, (which he expects to be at the next appointment August 14) she should be off crutches or other support within a week to 10 days. That was much sooner than we expected. He also said that she should be able to have as many babies as she wants without any complications or need for C-sections. We had been worrying about it, so that is really good news. Overall we are a little disappointed with the timing, (the cruise we had planned for July 29 is still doable, but more complex and the first few weeks of school may be difficult) but very pleased with the long term picture.

My brother and his wife and Steph and me and our girls met Tod, Lee Ann, Bailey, Hutton and Reagan for lunch after they met with the doctor. It was good to hug them and look into their eyes and talk about things other than the accident for awhile. It felt good just to be with them.

But when we had to say good-bye my heart sank. I'm understanding what a heavy heart feels like for the first time. It feels exactly like it sounds. On the drive back to my office the tears welled up, the anger arose. There was a huge hole in our lunch gathering. The voice in my head was screaming, "Where is Connor? Connor should have been there!"

At lunch we played musical chairs around the table. We tried to arrange things so everyone could participate in the conversation. This put my youngest, Emily (18 mos.), at the end of the table as she didn't seem all that interested in speaking to us. I looked down the table at her during our meal and it struck me that had Connor been there, he would have sat by her. He would have given up his seat with the adults to entertain Emily. He would have known it was a nice thing to do, but his true motivation always seemed to be that he simply loved little children.

I imagine there will be hundreds more " He should have been there" moments. I can't fathom having them at every turn like my sister and her family are experiencing. It seems like a never ending series of discovering new ways to miss him. We journey on and continue to appreciate your prayers.