THE SILENCE OF A LAMB

On a better day, once.

She sits in her bed quietly and the only sounds emanating from her are interpreted through her oxygen sensor that periodically erupts in three short blasts of beeping. Her voice is stilled by the tracheotomy affixed in her throat.

Her pain intensifies and she begins to draw her knees up to her chest, her face is silently creased by the power of it all and she understands little and says less. Her arms are stretched over her head and swing down with a force that only causes her pain to increase and make me wince, as she seems to protest the intrusion of her pain. Where is God?

As I stand over her at her bedside she looks up at me and destroys my calm, shatters my peace, and breaks my heart as my soul becomes lost, frozen by my inability to do anything for her. Her eyes ask me pleadingly to help her, to take away the pain as I used to when she was just a little girl. Her sobs remain silent and sometimes I don’t see them let alone hear. I want to hold her tight and tell her everything is OK, Daddy will fix things. Instead, Daddy has lost any effectiveness in all this, worthless and useless.

When staff enters her room I jump to help the staff deal with a confused and frightened patient and the staff member has a hard job. I can’t get angry with them since they do have their hands full with other patients with pain and fear. They can easily overlook something they need to do in their haste and concentration on all my daughter’s problems. But, where is God?

Breakfast is a battle of the wills when I try to feed her during her most trying periods of pain. I look at her menu and find it unappetizing and understand why she won’t eat. They feed her overnight with a tube, and sometimes she eats her lunch not so much.

I don’t know where all this is going but I suspect it won’t end well. But maybe ending well will mean the end of her suffering in one way or another. Where is God?