Lost Souls Can Be Found Again
Faith noun
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person :LOYALTY
b (1) : fidelity to one’s promises
(2) : sincerity of intentions
2 b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof
(courtesy of Merriam-Webster)
What is faith really? Most people immediately relate it to God, or religion or some sort of spiritual purpose. I remember Miracle on 34th St. when Mr. Gailey and then later on Doris said, “Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to”. Probably one of the best lines in the movie next to “Come right down, you know you shouldn’t run around in other people’s houses, you know better than that.” (What child jumps out of a car and bursts into a stranger’s house?) But Susie believed, she had faith, it wasn’t a spiritual faith, it was just faith in something that she knew she had no control over. She kept saying “I believe, I believe, it’s silly but I believe”. And then the house, the one she wished for. She believed and let herself be open to something she had no control over, and she eventually got what she wanted when all hope was lost. Which is the purpose of this blog post, probably the most honest I could ever be.
A few months ago, I was scanning through my Instagram stories and I saw a person I was following was asking for prayers for a family going through a sudden and tragic accident with their daughter. Instagram is such a big platform that trying to see everything is A. Almost impossible. B. Would overwhelm you if you could. And C. Who really has that much time to scan all of Instagram. (I get it, some have more time than others.) @dugansherbondy was his Instagram name, and I saw a picture of a girl in a hospital bed, full of tubes and machines and the situation looked dire. I felt sick to my stomach when I looked at it and I thought, “This situation sucks. How could God do this to this family and this child?” God has this amazing job with us to be either be a superhero or a villain at different moments in our lives. If something is working out, He is great, if something takes a tragic turn, we curse Him and get mad that more couldn’t be done. It’s not His fault but we will blame with a negative result and if it ends positively, we praise Him. I am not an elite theological mind, a majority of us aren’t. There are also a number of Atheists who are reading this and are chuckling at my thought process that someone named God is even making me think beyond what is right in front of me. In turn I will make fun of them because I have seen miracles and have witnessed first-hand the other side, it exists. But like I said above, this isn’t about spiritual faith per say, it’s about a faith and a belief system as a whole.
So I kept leaving Instagram and then I would find myself going back to that picture, I would go do something and would come back and look at the picture. Filled with sadness I wanted to get the bigger picture of this girl and their story. I thought it would make me feel better. I looked beyond the picture of this little girl in her hospital bed and I looked at posts before the accident. As I scanned pervious posts, she reminded me of my 7-year-old daughter almost to a T. If they went to the same school, they would be friends, I have no doubt. Similar facial expressions, the love of music and dancing, super artistic, and being a total goofball all the time. That is what this girl was, a larger than life personality and I found myself imagining myself in that situation and my heart sank. If one day Amelia was injured, in an instant, what would happen to my world, what would happen to the world of those around her? It absolutely devastated me.
My daughter Amelia (7), who often creeps on me and my phone and likes to see what I am looking at, asked what was wrong with that girl. I told her the story to the best of my knowledge at the time and she became sad, she asked the general kid questions about medical terminology and prognosis (you know, typical 7-year-old questions. Sigh…older beyond her years) and then said she would pray for this girl. I said that was a good idea, so she went to her room to pray. Meanwhile I sat on my couch and I stared out the window and began to cry. I cried harder than I have cried in quite some time. Over one picture. I just looked at the picture and was overwhelmed with this heartache. One picture, one family, one struggle, one moment they wish they could change back (I’m thinking about that moment as I write this, and I am getting misty eyed). I began following him so I could get updates on how she was doing. My daughter was also very curious so every chance we saw a new post I would read it and I would show her the new pictures. And every time Amelia would feel bad and think about her, she would walk away, and I would cry. Serious crying. I would walk into the bathroom and pretend to use the toilet and would sit and cry. Maybe I was crying for them, maybe it was with them, but one thing was for certain, my heart was broken for this family. But as my heart was broken, I would ask myself. “Why are you torturing yourself with this?” Every time I would wipe my face of tears and take a deep breath. I knew exactly why. I knew where our paths met, I knew what was bringing this on, and I knew that it stopped now.
Sunday November 20, 2016, in the early morning it was déjà vu from 4 years prior when we were racing to the hospital with a bun in the oven that was not quite “cooked” all the way to come out. As we drove to the hospital, I took my phone out and took a picture of the just rising sun as we headed to uncertainty. It was a beautiful sunrise and it was straight ahead as we headed to Minneapolis to the hospital. The first time my girlfriend went by ambulance and I was terrified. There is so much uncertainty with your first baby even when things go smoothly but with the uncertainty of my baby and the mother’s health, I was a wreck. With the second one it almost felt strangely routine and I was much calmer but still had that feeling in the pit of my stomach. James (second child) was born 8 weeks premature, a solid 3lbs 5oz and came right out of the gate having to fight hard. I remember all of the hours per day and months spent in a hospital staring at monitors and walls, and looking out the tiny window in our room, the transfers, the doctors, the nurses, and asking God when, when is it going to be time to heal? He never answered and I didn’t expect an answer. I just asked. (never hurts to ask right?) Sometimes people would walk by the room in the NICU and ask if we wanted to pray, and we would allow them to. I would bow, I would close my eyes, and I would look at them and their eyes were closed, they were smiling, and they would finish their prayer and they looked happy, and relieved. They filled the room with hope, they filled the room with faith, they would thank us and walk out. I went through the motions, but I didn’t pray with them. I didn’t believe it, not necessarily in Him but in it, the faith, the hope. Their message didn’t translate, I didn’t want it to translate at that time. I was being selfish by thinking I could work out these problems on my own. Her monitors would go off and people would rush in, and I remember I would just stare, expressionless, wondering what in the living hell was going on. I would leave for the day/night to be with our 4-year-old and I would scream in the car at the top of my lungs. Usually a 4-letter word and never was I more serious about it.
I cursed God and became very jaded. I became very negative about things in life. I was of course blessed and overwhelmed by everyone’s support and help from friends and family, the Ronald McDonald House, and hospital staff. It was a village of support that kept us afloat. But I was mad at the situation, the situation of other kids, other families. Parents would walk into the Ronald McDonald House and they looked like they hadn’t slept in a week, they probably hadn’t. Sometimes I would overhear a conversation about another family’s situation and there were preparations for good-byes, there were tests that were inconclusive, and they had prayers that didn’t have answers. I would hear “code blue” and I was in a children’s hospital, I knew who it was for and it crushed me. You developed a callus over your heart because letting these people in would make your heart explode. You learned to ignore the sadness. I learned to keep my eyes down rather than up, and by the end of the journey we were both mentally and physically exhausted. We were lucky. We were blessed. So many don’t have the same positive outcome. The callus on my heart crumbled to the ground when I saw this man’s Instagram profile, almost 3 years after our long hospital stay with James. All the heartache and pain I felt for so long, poured out from his story.
I had some relatable “war stories” with him and this family but there was a huge difference between him and I. He was never negative, he was never sad, or at least he didn’t show it on the posts. His posts were of hope, they were of miracles, and not hoping for a miracle but believing in one. It wasn’t if, it was when, it wasn’t hurry up, it was we’ll be patient and wait for that moment. Something he posted was a biblical verse from the book of Matthew 6:34, it said “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today”. Amazing to think about and something I think about on a daily basis. Don’t overwhelm yourself with tomorrow, just take it one day at a time.
Even if you aren’t a religious person his words would speak to you. I am not an overly religious person, I have been baptized, I was confirmed, I taught Sunday School for a short period of time out of high school but in recent years the desire for faith has dwindled. It’s of no one’s particular fault but my own. I lost my way of sorts, rediscovering spirituality or faith as an adult hasn’t been a top priority. But seeing these posts was almost as if he was speaking to me through his pain and struggles. His message was becoming my own little gospel. The book of Dugan so to speak.
The posts were almost daily or a few times a week and I would look forward to seeing the posts. I wanted a miracle. I began praying for one. I wanted her to wake up and to look at her family who had been praying so hard for that miracle, but it wasn’t happening. And I got angry about it. But then I saw he wasn’t getting angry about it. He had every right to be angry but he wasn’t. And it dawned on me. It was faith. Faith in the miracle of medicine, faith in the miracle of God’s work, faith in humanity, faith in blessings, faith in believing. His message of God might not resonate with everybody, but God isn’t the point, it’s not the destination, God is his vessel. His words are carried by God which allows him to process this situation. The destination is faith, the destination is the miracle of Eva’s healing. How she gets there is up to something beyond us, but that doesn’t mean we ignore the faith or the message. Dugan’s message is good. Believe me, it’s phenomenal. (I think I have mentioned that already, yep, pretty sure I have)
This father, who I had never met, never seen, never knew existed until a few months ago spoke so innocently and openly to the masses and maybe or maybe not to his knowledge, was saving people. Not saving intensely like a born again or flipping people’s lives upside down, but I believe his words have the power to change one’s trajectory, one’s destination. One by one, people were reading his message and were drawn to it. They would comment about his words, his message, they would tell him that they were there for him. Tens of thousands were waking people up to a message that was pure, innocent, and without agenda. It was cool seeing in his story that people would post pics of different sunrises or sunsets across the world in support to the family. #evasky (It reminded me of the sunrise I took a picture of on our way to the hospital. Above the fear and anxiety, there was beauty and promise.) There were family projects, the art, the kids praying, so many different photos of strangers standing in solidarity with the family. It’s so easy now days to watch the news or read the paper and get consumed by opinion or lies covered up to become fact. His message had none of that. You would see the pictures and there would be this sadness and just overwhelming hopelessness and then you would read that his message is to love, his message is to be grateful and feel blessed, to enjoy this earth, to look in the face of despair and darkness and turn your back to it and enjoy an #evasky.
This family has done more than any one person or thing has done in quite some time for me. I believe in his message, I believe in faith, and I believe in Dugan and Eva and their family that there will be healing and there will be a miracle. You don’t need to go to church to have some spirituality or to have faith. All you need is your heart to open and your mind to open up a little as well. Faith is believing in something when common sense tells you not to. Never is that truer with this family and their story. This girl has a long road ahead of her but what Eva has done is plant seeds of hope, roots to faith, and shined some light to those who sit in the darkness because it’s easier to. I think she would find that pretty freakin’ cool. I thank Dugan every day for his message, and I pray for him, his family and their sweet Eva.
The whole purpose to this blog post is not completely known to me. I have debated writing it for weeks but didn’t quite know how to put it together which is rare for me in my writing style. Usually it pours out, and it looks good and I save it for rainy days which never come. (I don’t share a ton of my writing) This was different. It almost felt like something else was driving me to write it. This family’s story means the world to me and it has helped me on a lot of different levels. I don’t talk about it openly to friends or family because of the emotional level I feel on it. This seriously transformed me. I feel terrible every day for their struggle, and I think about them every single day and I thank Dugan for sharing his story and the way he has lifted so many in his time of need. Check him out, say a little prayer or if that’s not your thing, think about what you’re grateful for. There is so much on this planet that is unknown, but never let it be your love for each other. We need it. @dugansherbondy is his Instagram Username. You won’t be disappointed.
Thank you Eva and Dugan from the bottom of my heart.
#evalove
#evasky
