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Being the parent of a profoundly
retarded, critically ill daughter, I get many messages from people asking me for
prayers and healing for a young family member who is facing medical problems. And I always do whatever I can.
The one thing I have learned over the
years, is that I have no control over what my daughter chooses to experience in
this lifetime.
I guess I should give some
background. I had tried for many
years to become pregnant, even taking fertility drugs. Finally 11 years and one miscarriage later, I was pregnant. I did everything right through the pregnancy. In my 6th month, we were in a car accident causing me severe
injuries – broken nose, ribs, fractured pelvis, facial cuts.
It was obvious by sonogram that
Samantha had received a bump on her head, probably by hitting my pelvis. All the tests they did on her showed that she was doing well. We were hoping that she had not received any damage.
I was very concerned through the next
two months of my pregnancy. I was
on pain medication constantly, which I knew was not good.
At one point, I began to feel Samantha shuddering, as if she was having
seizures. The doctor passed it off
as nothing.
Samantha was born 3 ½ weeks early. The doctors had done a sonogram a few days earlier, and
though nothing was said to me, this time it was obvious that something was
wrong. Instead of Samantha’s head
growing, it was smaller than before the wreck.
When I went to the hospital with mild labor, they induced and delivered
her as quickly as they could. They
never let on to me that they had a concern. I expected everything to be okay until she was born blue and rushed
immediately to neo-natal intensive care.
This is when the nightmare began. I still had not completely recovered from my own injuries. Visiting Samantha in the Intensive Care and seeing all the tubes and
machines hooked to her was very frightening.
The doctors did not know what was wrong with her at that point. It was about a week before they could do a CAT scan. Their diagnosis was that she had no brain, only a brain stem.
We were told that she would be a vegetable and that we should place her
in a home.
Needless to say, I was devastated. The last thing we expect is to have a child who is not
perfect. No one prepares us for the
chance that something can go wrong.
Apparently, at the time of the wreck,
the blow to her head had caused her to have a stroke. A fetus’ blood will not clot and when blood touches brain tissue, it
destroys it. So, for the two months
I carried her, the blood ate away at her brain until there was almost nothing
left.
By the time she was 3 months old, she
had developed hydrocephalous, which is excess fluid on the brain. The doctor was very slow to diagnose it and by the time he
did, it was very severe. He told us
that they would probably not do surgery on her because she was so brain damaged.
We were lucky enough to be sent to
one of the best Pediatric Neurologist’s in Dallas. He calmed a lot of the fears the Pediatrician had caused.
He assured us that Samantha did have more than a brain stem, that she had
some cortex, which is the most important part. We learned that no one could say what she would or would not
do. And he called in a surgeon
immediately and she had surgery the next day. Needless to say, I never went to that Pediatrician again.
Seeing Samantha after surgery was one
of the most frightening times of my life. I
was called into the recovery room to hold her as she woke up.
She was very pale and cold as ice. Half
her head was shaved and a bandage covered most of it.
I was terrified. But this
was only the beginning of my journey through fear with Samantha.
When she was young, I was determined
to prove everyone wrong. I was
determined that she would sit, and stand, and do all the things the
doctors told us she would never do. I
was lucky enough to be able to provide her with the physical therapy that she
needed. And eventually she could
sit some, and she did stand with assistance, and pick things up, and make verbal
sounds.
I was a Southern Baptist at the time
she was born and heard all the normal comments. “God had a reason for this.” “You
are being punished for something.” And
on and on. I could not accept this.
MY god would not do something like this to punish me. He would not do something like this to punish Samantha. I could not accept that this would be the only life experience that my
daughter would have.
I was very angry with God. I screamed at him. I cursed
him. I turned my back on him. For several years, I had no spiritual base in my life.
I began to study the different religions and learned about reincarnation. I had always had problems believing that we had only one life
and then spent eternity playing harps in heaven. That never made sense to me. But
reincarnation did! This wasn’t
the only life Samantha would ever experience! She had even CHOSEN to have this life experience and I had chosen to have
it with her. Learning this totally
changed my life and my attitude toward Samantha.
Over the years, I learned to
communicate with Samantha, first using kinesiology and a pendulum and later
psychically. Samantha was happy to
finally to be able to communicate some of her wishes.
I learned that she is the most psychic person I have ever met.
Samantha has been known to turn toys
on sitting on a shelf across the room. She
has unscrewed light bulbs miles away from where she was and thrown them at
someone to get their attention. She
puts thoughts in her nurse’s heads so that they know what she does or does not
want. She has refused to learn any
kind of normal communication usually taught to handicapped children. She feels since she can use her psychic abilities so well,
she doesn’t have to lower herself to do it in any normal way.
When Samantha was 7, she decided that
she wanted to die. Her father had
taken a job offshore and was gone a week, then home a week. Every time he left, she would get pneumonia. He would come home and she would get well. I guess she thought that she would be able to get him to come home by
getting sick, but it never worked. It
reached a point, that when I took her to the doctor he said, “Dad must have
left.”
This was a very difficult time for
me. Samantha was angry with me
because I wouldn’t leave her alone and let her die. She even asked me to help her, which I refused.
I wished many times that I had not learned to communicate with her.
This was 10 years ago. Samantha has been so close to death so many times that everyone is amazed
that she is still alive. Doctors
have commented on her ability to control her body functions and their amazement
that she can ‘purposely’ take herself to the brink of death and then bring
herself back.
During this time, I have grieved more
than I thought it was possible for someone to grieve. I have prayed that she would die so that I could be released from my
nightmare. I have had to deal with
my guilt over taking such good care of her that she did not die at times when
she probably should have. I have
put my body through such strain in my attempt to care for her that I now live in
constant pain. I stopped living my
life for many years and devoted everything to her.
During this time I have learned some
of the most valuable lessons a person can learn in life. I
have learned to find the blessings in what seems to be a nightmare.
I have learned that I don’t have to feel that I was a bad mother
because I prayed for her death, that it was a normal emotion. I have learned to take my life back and not try to live hers for her. I have learned that other people can take care of her; it doesn’t have
to always be me. I have learned to
honor her as the special person she is. I
have learned that I do not have to feel guilty about her being alive. If she were really meant to die, she would have. I have given her permission to die and let her take charge of her own
life, and she is actually doing better.
The most important thing we can do
for our children, healthy or not, is to accept them AS THEY ARE. I spent years determined to make Samantha something she didn’t want to
be. She was not meant to be normal;
to sit, or walk, or talk, or any of the other things we expect.
She is exactly the way she wants to be, and I honor that now. We can spend so much time running from doctor to doctor, and miracle cure
to miracle cure that we ignore the beautiful soul that the child is.
Sometimes our time can be better spent just hugging them and loving them. Sometimes all they want is to be accepted just as they are, and loved for
who they are. When we can do that,
things change for us and the child.
Facing the death of a child is never
easy. I still panic when Samantha
gets really sick. I will never be
prepared for her to leave. But, she
has my permission to go or stay as she chooses.
She has no doubt that her caregivers love her unconditionally, just as
she is.
She has taught so many people so much
in this lifetime. She could have
never taught the same lessons had she been born ‘normal’. She has taught many doctors that not everything happens as it is written
in their books, that each person is different. She has taught many doctors that alternative methods work better than
theirs. She has opened the eyes and
mind of many of her caregivers as she leads them into the psychic world where
she lives. She has taught many
people that though they see her as a vegetable, she is in reality smarter than
they are. And she has taught me to
live my own life, and let others live theirs. I cannot make her decisions for her and have no control over what
happens. She has also taught me
that the worst of circumstances can be gone through with grace and acceptance.
Samantha
passed away on June 10, 2006
Visit her Tribute pages.
Rev. Claudia McNeely DD -
http://www.askclaudia.com - is a gifted
and caring Psychic/Healer. With the assistance of Angels, Guides and Master
Healers, she will tell you exactly what she sees and feels instead of what you
want to hear. Her Clairvoyant Psychic Readings are very accurate and insightful.
She can help you to understand where you are, where you want to be and how to
get there.
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