"It's about Joy that comes out of Sorrow"

I've had this one line from Billy Joel's song All About Soul stuck in my head for weeks now. Mainly because it was the song that my cousin Sarah danced with her father at her wedding in June. This song has a pretty big significance to them as it is the song that reminds my uncle of my Aunt Ann. And listening to the lyrics closely I know exactly why.

She waits for me at night, she waits for me in silence
She gives me all her tenderness and takes away my pain
And so far she hasn't run, though I swear she's had her moments
She still believes in miracles while others cry in vain

 

It's all about soul
It's all about faith and a deeper devotion
It's all about soul
'Cause under the love it is a stronger emotion

She's got to be strong
'Cause so many things getting out of control
Should drive her away, so why does she stay?
It's all about soul

 

She turns to me sometimes and she asks me what I'm dreaming
And I realize I must have gone a million miles away
And I ask her how she knew to reach out for me at that moment
And she smiles because it's understood there are no words to say

 

It's all about soul
It's all about knowing what someone is feeling
The woman's got soul
The power of love and the power of healing

This life isn't fair
It's gonna get dark, it's gonna get cold
You gotta get tough but that ain't enough
It's all about soul

It's all about soul
Yes, it is
It's all about soul

 

There are people who have lost every trace of human kindness
There are many who have fallen, there are some who still survive
As she comes to me at night and she tells me her desires
And she gives me all the love I need to keep my faith alive

 

It's all about soul
It's all about joy that comes out of sorrow
It's all about soul
Who's standing now, who's standing tomorrow

You've got to be hard
As hard as the rock in that old rock 'n' roll
But that's only part, you know in your heart
It's all about soul

It's all about soul
Yes, it is
All about soul
Yes, it is
All about soul
Yes, it is
It's all about soul

 

 

In the weeks following her death, I've been listening to this song on repeat wanting to be close to her. And I almost always end up in tears by the last refrain. It captures every aspect of her personality--her selflessness, her strength when all seemed lost, her endless hope. And now I think about my cousin's dance with her father, while my aunt watched on a monitor from home via Skype--none of them knowing she'd only be with us for 4 more days.

 

But it's that one line that I've been stuck on relentlessly.

 

Because I've been looking for the joy that comes out of sorrow for awhile now. Waiting for something great to come out of this awful summer my family has been stuck in. Something to have made all the sorrow we've experienced in such a small period of time worth it in the end.

 

And I thought the easiest form of joy would come with the birth of my sister's new baby.

 

But the joy didn't come easy.

 

My sister gave birth to my nephew, Owen Robert at 7:53 AM on August 11th via C-Section. He was beautiful--looking just like his big sister Maggie--big, and we thought healthy. After the doctors took him back to examine him closer around 8am, my sister did not see him again for nearly 12 hours.

 

Something was wrong.

 

But no one would tell any of us what or allow us to see him. My sister was hysterical and beyond exhaustion, all she wanted was to see her baby and know what was wrong. My brother-in-law was hounding the nurses in the NICU and calling the doctor every hour. It was mass chaos and we all tried to keep our spirits ups for sake of my sister--but we were all worried.

 

Around 9pm, the doctor called and told my sister that Owen was going to be taken to CHOP for further testing. There seemed to be a defect in his heart, and he went blue twice while the nurses attempted to feed him. They also believed a syndrome was involved as his head was a little large, his ears very small, and his arms short. Naturally, we were all terrified of the implications of this and my sister basically had to be sedated.

 

For the last week, my family has been splitting our time between CHOP and taking care of my 11month old niece. We'd switch twice a day, making sure one of us was always at the hospital while another was home with Maggie. It was hectic and we still had no answers---test after test was done, with no results. Everyone was diagnosing him--the worst was the possibility he could be blind and death.

 

We all just prayed to Aunt Ann and Pop. Asking them both to protect him.

 

By the end of the week we had an official diagnosis; Owen has DiGeorge Syndrome. Here's the main issues associated with it:

1. congenital heart disease
2. learning disabilities
3. problems with speech and swallowing due to a vascular ring in the throat
4. susceptible to infection due to a low T-Cell count
5. small ears 

Finally having a diagnosis put us all at ease. No more wondering or worrying. But the reality set in--Owen was going to be different and would need a lot of attention and work. Having just one child with this issue is a lot, but also having an 11-month old who is just learning to walk makes the situation a little more precarious. My sister and brother-in-law were going to have their hands full.

 

But after the dust settled, we realized Owen was born into a loving and supportive family, where he would thrive and grow to the best of his ability. We would all band together and do anything they needed to make life easier. That the best and only hospital in the country to have an entire wing devoted to DiGeorge Syndrome was at CHOP, and Owen would have a team of doctors to help him as he grows. We would not take this diagnosis as a set-back, but a reason to keep fighting. We'd love him even more.

 

And that's where I found it.

 

Owen Robert.
Our joy that came out of sorrow.

Where did the Summer go?

The summer is flying by. I looked at my planner this morning and couldn't believe it's August 7th already. No, I haven't been avoiding calendars or have been living on a deserted island for the last two months with no concept of time. It literally just hit me this morning--as I sat down at my computer for work, and decided to write this blog instead--that the summer is almost over. Labor Day, the official end of the summer season, is three weeks away.

What the heck happened summer?

Regardless of the fact that the East Coast has had maybe.....3 weeks of truly summer hot days in this entire three month period and it's rained almost twice a week, it just hasn't felt like a true summer. And yes, I've done summery things that I haven't touched on in this blog--gone to the shore a few times, swam in a pool, worn flip-flops and shorts, took a vacation with my sisters to Florida (and FINALLY Disney World), and got pretty wicked sun-burn on multiple occasions.

 

But it's been different.

And recalling all that has happened this summer, I'm not too surprised. Made me realize why the summer flew by.

Thinking about how extreme things got the past weeks makes me exhausted. My life literally flip-flopped between extreme pain, to extreme joy and then back again. Summer started with a blind-sided breakup and my aunt's cancer coming back, then to my cousin pushing up her wedding and marrying the man of her dreams in time for her mother to see it, then my aunt passed, I had my first editing session with my editor for my new project, and Pop got sick and then passed a week later. And over the next few weeks I have more joys and sorrows coming--my other cousin is getting married on Saturday, without my aunt there to see it. My sister is giving birth to her second child on Monday, and Pop will never meet his second great-grandchild.

 

I really feel like I'm on one of those teeter-totters we played on as kids. Once you get down to safety and security, you're kicked back off into the air. Almost like I'm looking for the next tragedy in life, and I can't keep my guard down.

But I guess what this summer has taught me is that that's life; we weeble and wooble between the extremes in emotion. That from great pain can come great joy, it's just a matter of finding it. Life isn't always smooth and easy, but giving in to grief and sadness isn't the way to live. We need to take the bad with the good, and just remember peace will eventually come.

I can't wait til this summer is over, to be honest. I want to get to that peace and move on.

A summer I can't wait to end, but one I will never forget.