Today marks exactly one year since my concerns for Judson began.
For about two weeks, I had noticed Jud was seemingly off balance and stumbling a little bit, but I hadn’t thought much of it to that point; I am not a highly anxious mom and I simply chalked his clumsiness up to a growth spurt.
However, a year ago today, on Wednesday, June 6th, I remember sitting at the park with a new friend (who had actually lost her son John in October of 2005), and we were discussing one of her daughters who had broken her collar bone a couple weeks prior. My friend mentioned that she thought her daughter seemed to be accident prone.
I started to tell her how Jud might have the same propensity toward clumsiness because he had recently been falling quite a bit. As I was sharing these thoughts, Jud was racing over to me from the slide on the playground and suddenly fell down. There didn’t appear to be any obstacles to trip him up or any other explanation for his fall.
It was as though a flashing red light went off in my head and I began to wonder whether this behavior was normal for a child his age. Those concerns kept rolling around in my mind throughout the afternoon until I finally decided, out of precaution, to simply run things by his pediatrician; I called and made an appointment for Jud to visit the doctor the next day.
I may have suddenly become concerned, but I was still oblivious to the severity that was upon us-the nightmare that was just around the corner…
I wish I could go back and savor more deeply the season of life preceding the suffering, affliction, and death that would change me forever. It was as though my world was about to be ripped apart, but I didn’t know to relish what I had before it disappeared.
Tomorrow has no guarantees.
Even in my pain, I want to be grateful for the joys I have been given and drink deeply the sweet moments of life.