Posted By AmyD. on December 1, 2009

A year ago today I was trapped in a hospital room watching my son recover from Retroperitoneal Lymph Node Dissection. Horrific, excruciating, and painful are all understatements.

Mike stayed as long as he could before taking our girls home and leaving me down at UCLA with Ethan. In the room I kept a brave face, made inappropriate jokes, slept uneasily in an uncomfortable chair next to him, and spent hours coaching him through the pain caused by the NG tube running through is nose and down to his stomach.

There is no pain in this world that is even remotely comparable to seeing your child suffer and knowing there is nothing you can do about it.

My stepmother was kind and wonderful enough to loan us her car because our suburban’s fuel pump went out on the freeway on our way down to UCLA. I would get into this car and drive through the area around UCLA to our hotel, I was unfamiliar with the area and so I had two simple routes planned out that I never deviated from.

There are lots of stoplights down there and I had lots of time to see the Christmas displays in the windows and the people bustling around with bags from store to store. Nothing was normal in my world. Christmas is the high point of my year, every year. That year my house was dark, I barely managed to get a tree. Half of me was determined that nothing would be different, the other half of me wanted to crawl into a hole and cry until my heart exploded. There is no manual telling you how to conduct the holiday celebrations while your child fights a disease that wants to kill him.

Even now it is difficult to recall this time without tears dropping on to my keyboard.

There I was in a strange area, in someone else’s car, my iPod at home, my husband and girls at home, and I would play “I Need A Silent Night” by Amy Grant over and over again through the MP3 player on my cell phone.

“I need a silent night, a holy night,
To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise
I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here
To end this crazy day with a silent night”

I wasn’t fighting the crowds shopping or worrying if I remembered to pick up more scotch tape but my world was overwhelmingly chaotic, crazy, and noisy and all I could do was pray for a silent night. I must have listened to that track at least a hundred times that week. Sometimes I sang along loudly, sometimes it was a choked cry, pleading to what I felt was an unseen and unheard God.

I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here.It became my personal anthem.

To this day my eyes well up from the very first chord. It takes me right back to an intersection in L.A where I realized I had given up caring what strangers thought about the woman with disheveled hair and no make up crying over a steering wheel while waiting for the light to turn green. I sat in the car waiting to park in front of the hospital and tried to dry my eyes, blow my nose, and pull myself together before going up to see Ethan.

That week, those drives alone to and from the hospital were the only emotional outlet I had. The only down time when I didn’t have to have my game face on and it was just me… screaming, crying, praying, begging for a little peace.

Southern California is pretty much nonstop sunshine and even with smog and air pollution the skies are blue. I remember pulling out of the parking garage for the last time with Ethan in the passenger seat. December 5th, it had been a week and we were finally going home, the sun glared through the windshield and we both squinted looking into it.

About three hours later we dropped out of the mountains and into the fog bank that sits on the San Joaquin Valley all winter long. A sunny, blue sky winter day is rare around here. Still, entering the fog bank and feeling it close around me was oddly comforting, it meant we were nearly home.

I’d love to wrap this up with some sort of happy ending. The fact that my son is cancer free and was blessed enough to not have to endure chemo or radiation is something in itself to be thankful for, of that I am completely aware. But there is no denying that the last year has been rough. Multiple surgeries leave scars, sore spots, and unusual aches and pains. Every six months you get a reminder of it all with the surveillance tests.

What they rarely talk about is the emotional ramifications. Those scars run deep and in many ways they haven’t even healed to a “scar” point. There are still scabs that occasionally get ripped off and the pain is felt all over again. When the world tells you that you should be filled with elation and celebration over a battle fought hard and won, it is difficult to feel the other emotions that are right there too.

I know all the soundbites that I am supposed to say. Things like, “every day is precious and every moment we are together means something.” “Tell the people you love how much you love them because things can change in an instant” or “I appreciate life so much more now because I understand it’s fragility.” But I don’t say them, I agree with them, but I have no interest in spouting them for the sake of political correctness or what they world wants to hear me say.

The world doesn’t want to hear that you now know the “boogey man” is very real and he might come back, that there are more than just incisions to recover from, that while you might have made it to the other side, you are angry at having to fight at all. That the battle broke you down, bruised you from the inside out, and nearly destroyed your faith in humanity. That the tiny moments of grace are fleeting and they are only pinpoints in an otherwise dark and vast sea where there is no map, no compass, and no guidebook.

I’ve lived through deaths, car accidents, boating accidents, broken bones… and nothing prepared me for watching my son struggle through a battle with cancer and try to figure out a place in this world for a teenager who no longer has the same worries and concerns or that feeling of immortality that youth is supposed to guarantee.

I was asked once if I thought all of this had made me a better person.

I don’t think so. This has taught me that horrible things happen to completely undeserving people, that the list of people you can really trust and count on is shockingly short, and that even people close to you will betray you in ways you would never even believe possible.

I’m careful of who I trust now, I’m careful of who I let in, I’m a lot quicker to escort you out of my life if you threaten the peace and harmony in my home and family. I’m a lot more aware that stomach pain can be more than an upset stomach. The boogey man exists and there are ghosts in the shadows.

No amount of caroling or hot chocolate can take that away. And sometimes, I still pray for a silent night and a midnight clear.

I’ve made the same mistake before
Too many malls, too many stores
December traffic, Christmas rush
It breaks me till I push and shove

Children are crying while mothers are trying
To photograph Santa and sleigh
The shopping and buying and standing forever in line
What can I say?

I need a silent night, a holy night
To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise
I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here
To end this crazy day with a silent night

December comes then disappears
Faster and faster every year
Did my own mother keep this pace
Or was the world a different place?

Where people stayed home wishing for snow
Watching three channels on their TV
Look at us now rushing around
Trying to buy Christmas peace

I need a silent night, a holy night
To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise
I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here
To end this crazy day with a silent night

What was it like back there in Bethlehem
With peace on earth, good will toward men?

Every shepherd’s out in the field
Keeping watch over their clock by night
And the glory of the Lord shone around them
And they were so afraid

And the angels said fear not for behold
I bring you good news of a great joy that shall be for all people
For unto you is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord
And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace

I need a silent night, a holy night
To hear an angel voice through the chaos and the noise
I need a midnight clear, a little peace right here
To end this crazy day with a silent night
To end this crazy day with a silent night

- Amy Grant / Chris Eaton

Categories: Holidays, Observations
Tags: amy grant, cancer, chemo, Chris Eaton, Christmas, Christmas carols, Ethan, I Need A Silent Night, Memories, radiation, recovery, RPLND, song lyrics, surgeries, testicular cancer, UCLA, video