Boy’s Night Out
Posted on | April 9, 2009 | No Comments
One of the nice things about living in the Clarksville area of Austin is that we are surrounded by things to do. Town Lake and its parks and running trails are about ½ mile away, restaurants and shops even less. In fact, we have some of those right in the middle of our neighborhood. We try and take advantage of this proximity as much as we can by getting out on foot.
Monday nights have been “Boy’s Night Out” lately at the Peacock household. Kelly is taking a class at Dell Children’s Hospital, so William, John, and I have been going out to dinner down the street at the Galaxy Café. We fill up John’s feeding bag, hook it up with the pump to the stroller and to John’s g-tube, then head on out to the Galaxy, one block away. John enjoys his milk, William his fish sticks (or chicken tenders) and me my Galaxy Burger.
We were at the Galaxy a week ago or so and there was a mom who was there with her boys. Boys being boys, they were quite the handful. Especially the two year old. As they left the restaurant, the mom stopped to look at John. She said, “He’s so cute. Just wait until he is two!”
My first inclination was to say something like, “But you don’t understand. John’s different than other children. He won’t be like that at all when he is two. He’ll be laying here then just as he is now.”
I didn’t say this. But this isn’t the first time that I (or Kelly) have been tempted to say something along these lines. In fact, something like that has slipped out a few times. What we have seen in the person admiring our beautiful baby boy is the smile disappear almost immediately from their face as the look turns to confusion in an attempt to process this new, disquieting information.
What we have learned is that while there is nothing wrong with sharing our trials with others, there is a time and place for doing so. There is just no sense in robbing passersby of the joy of seeing John lying there looking so peaceful.
We’ve also discovered that when we do this, or even entertain the thought ourselves, we are to some extent robbing ourselves of the joy of enjoying our little boy. Reality is reality, and we need to acknowledge it. But if all we are doing is dwelling on John’s troubles and how he is different from every other little boy, we find little peace in our hearts. So we try, the best we can, to enjoy John with these others who see not his challenges, but his beauty.
This is really our challenge every day. We feel so burdened at times that we want to let everyone in on it to help share the load. In one sense, there is nothing wrong with this. And people have come from all around the world in one way or another to both help us bear this burden and share their joy in John with us (see the attached pictures).
On the other hand, part of our wanting to unload our burdens onto others stems from our failure to give our burdens to Christ. As He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt 11:28-30)
Truth be told, it isn’t just with John that this is the case. It is easy for us to be this way with William or our marriage. To focus on his/our deficiencies or differences from what we see in others (only half the picture, we know) rather than in the joy that can be found. And also not to take our cares and concerns with sufficient zeal to Christ. It doesn’t take a special child like John to reveal these faults in us—though it does have the benefit of making them more plain.
John’s condition continues to change—he likes to keep us and his entire medical team guessing. The seizures change in frequency and in how they reveal themselves. Lately it has been a day or so with little noticeable seizure activity followed by a seizure of several hours that doesn’t respond to medication.
John doesn’t eat as well as he used to. I’ve said in the past that the one thing that John can do is suck. Well, he still sucks, but not with the strength and coordination he used to. He takes the vast majority of his food these days through his feeding tube. We don’t know what that means, but it does make us sad.
Yet, lest we rob ourselves of our joy, we still delight to watch him open his mouth when he is laying down and start to suck. And we still delight in holding him, as I did as I wrote part of this update. And we still delight in the smiles and questions of the children in the church when they come to visit John.
This is a trying time for us. But as I often remind myself, we live in a fallen world. It is a trying time for everyone. As you lift us up in your prayers, pray also with thanksgiving that in this time Christ has not left His children on our own, but has sent His Comforter who dwells with us and in us. Pray also for a better time to come—a time when John Edward Peacock will be perfected, along with all the other saints of God, and his parents will no longer be tempted or able to rob themselves or anyone else of their joy.
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