What lies concealed and hidden.

The aroma hits me as I walk through the door. It floods back through my memories and I catch my breath. It isn’t a bad smell, it is the clean, disinfected smell of the hospital, but it strikes within me a flood of emotions that stir beneath the surface of my well tucked memories. We walk in and push floor 8 on the lift. The door to the ward lay before us as a welcome home mat to the familiar hallways. One year on we are back in for day surgery to remove a remaining screw. A screw that was meant to be removed with the other pieces of Calebs frame, but it lay beneath the surface concealed, hidden. It has slowly worked its way out of his bone, slowly making its presence known, pushing out until its presence begins to create discomfort, pain, risk. It is now more than visible and it needs to be addressed. It needs attention. It needs to come out.

We walk through the process of the day with the ease and familiarity of having done this too many times before. It is a routine of steps through admission, consultants, pre-op, anaesthetists, consulting with the surgeon, down to parent lounge, the phone call, recovery, back to the ward……the flow of the task at hand keeps us distracted, keeps us focused.

But every now and then in the midst of the minutes comes a memory, a picture, an emotion that takes me racing back to those unforgettable moments of our past. The chair in the pre- op ward sits as a memorial to the moments when I begged God to take this cup from us. The tiles on the wall of the corridor outside the theatre and recovery stand as plaques to the minutes where we paced up and down waiting for the door to open for us to be reunited with our boy. The smell of the prep room as the anaesthetic is delivered, raises fear within me as I see him stop breathing again. The simple things arouse within me the well hidden concealed thoughts and feelings that once again, like Calebs screw pushes to the surface. They rise within me and their presence creates discomfort, pain, risk. These feelings and memories need to be addressed. They need to come out.

But the day meanders on and those memories and feelings wash in and out. How do I truly let them out and will I ever let them go? They are a part of the past year that stand as monuments to our journey. They are the markers in our hearts that remind us of the pain that we have faced, endured and overcome. They are memories that led us to the place of remembrance.

Calebs leg is bandaged now. The screw has gone, the bone has been scraped and bruised, but the stiches now hold together the flesh that will forever bear the mark of its presence. Maybe our hearts will be like that too. Maybe as our Father stitches together our torn and battered heart, we too will feel a little scraped and bruised. For we too will forever bear the mark, the scar of the this journey.