Life at 4am

I always did do my best work late at night...maybe blogging is that way too. It's been over a month since my last blog entry-a lot has happened. The biggest thing is that my (older) brother, Kent, got into a severe car accident. He was in ICU for a month and he is now at a wing of Emory for rehab though the physical rehab has not even started...he's still trying to work his way off of using the trach they had to put in. I have been to see him many times but haven't seen him "awake" though he has been for a few weeks. To be honest, I'm scared to see him awake. Kent was never afraid of anything. I have rarely seen him upset about anything-always a tough guy. I think if I meet his gaze after not seeing him awake for so long I might just lose it and cry, the way I did that first week they told us "he's probably not going to live through today." There is nothing wrong with a good cry over someone you love, but I don't want to bring him sadness when I see him, I want to be encouraging, to lift his spirits and not let him see any more pain. It's not that I fear death for him now because he has fought hard to stay alive, it's that I have been told he feels depressed and wants to go home and I know that won't happen for at least another 2 months...and Kent's not the sort to be patient. Most of you don't know my brother-never met him or perhaps even knew he existed before this incident...he and I are not "close"...we haven't been since we were very little. We are not on bad terms or anything, we just have usually been at very different places in life and see the world in our own way. We are tied together by humor, love, and a competitive spirit for most things, especially chess (he is so stinking good at chess). He has one of the biggest hearts in the world and the last time I saw him outside a family function was when he volunteered to come fix a leaky pipe at my house an hour away from where he lives. He is very selfless when it comes to helping people he loves, and has always had a sense of wanting to make me proud as my big brother-I recently reread some letters he wrote me when he was far from home and longing to be back and couldn't come to my high school graduation. He was very sad that he couldn't make it and promised to be at my next one (a promise he kept). Unfortunately I have spent the majority of my life focusing on the mistakes he has made instead of remembering the good things he has done...obviously at a time of crisis like this it makes me stop and remember that no matter what has happened before, I love my brother, and I am so thankful he is still alive and for that I know I owe gratitude to God, and to all of you who have prayed and continue to pray for him and for the thousands of people who have prayed that I will never know about. Because in the end, although it's easiest to see life through my eyes, I try to look at it through the eyes of his wife, and son, knowing that it means so much more for him to make it to his son's graduation and milestones in life than for any other reason I could want to keep him around. I pray that he can use that as motivation to press on, to not give in to the depression he is feeling and to fight not only for his life to be reclaimed but to be able to be a part of his family's life again. I simply can't imagine life without my husband, and especially for Bella and our new baby girl-they need their Daddy and I know that my nephew needs his. I will keep praying for him, I hope you will too.