13 Mar Tag
Well, I suppose this makes this a real blog and not another health journal for Keegan! My friend, Abby, “tagged” me in a photo game.
Here are the rules:
1. Open your first photo folder on your computer.
2. Scroll to the 10th picture.
3. Post that picture and the story behind it.
4. Tag 5 or more people. (I don’t know a lot of people who blog, and Abby took most of them! So, I tag Stephanie McP, Ashley F, Chelle C, Lisa M, and Stephanie E…no pressure to actually participate though, y’all.)
Like just about everyone that I’ve seen respond to this, my photo folders are set up a bit differently, and the first folder under Pictures just had more folders in it. So, I this is the 10th picture in the first folder (2007) in the first folder (Keegan) in Pictures. Lost ya, yet? It’s neither here nor there really. I’m supposed to explain the story of the picture, not where I found it. Focus, Maddie! Just as a warning, the story behind the picture is a bit more serious and reflective than the point of this game was….
This picture was taken sometime in the afternoon of September 12, 2007, the day Keegan was born. I was still in the hospital myself, but it appears that Father Postell is performing a baptism and anointing of the sick on Keegan in the CVICU at Children’s. Gray is in blue at the front left, and my dad (Big Daddy) is in red in the back. I don’t think Last Rites were performed until he was taken in for his transplant surgery. Although if you were to ask any doctor or nurse on staff that day, they would probably have advised them to be performed. Funny how time loosens people’s tounges, as I’ve had no less than four people lately that were there that day tell me what a miracle it was that Keegan actually survived to his first surgery the next morning. Sure doesn’t lessen the blow though.
One of those people, a surgeon, is one of the most amazing Christians I’ve ever known. He is not Catholic, but he made a keen observation once when I off-handedly commented that giving Keegan the Last Rites before his transplant was probably a mistake – that it was actually the beginning of Keegan’s life! He said that I was right and wrong from a medical standpoint. It was a new life, but in order to start that life, a part of Keegan actually died on that table – the moment they took out his own damaged and useless heart to prepare him for the miracle of a new, strong one filled with love. Did you catch the gravity of that?? For the briefest moment, no heart beat in his chest, not even one on life support. My son, my baby, was gone for that moment, and through nothing but the love of another grieving family and the skill of a team of amazing surgeons, he came back to me.
I don’t know if I ever shared that conversation with anyone until now. I struck me in a way that I guess I buried it deep down; although I think about it every single day. I’m actually glad I was given this opportunity to share it with you. Relieves a bit of the burden in a way. The reality of that fact will never go away, and it daily brings up a wave of hurt and grief, no matter how brief, that rocks me to my core. Even more so as I prepare for our new baby, a healthy baby girl. But I choose to focus on God’s hand in this story. I can’t think of a better time to share it than with a picture of Keegan’s baptism. The act in which we die to our sins and are reborn into the possiblity of eternal life with the Father! An act that can only be performed through Him and by His grace. A reflection of Christ’s passion and sacrifice for us that we remember now during Lent as we prepare for his resurrection at Easter.
Surely this is not the way this game was meant to go. I do kind of wish I had a fun vacation picture to share now! But for what it’s worth, I hope that it heals me in a way that it might touch just one person who reads it.